Pilgrimage tourism-past, present and future rejuvenation: a perspective article

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to analyse the development of the pilgrimage phenomenon over the past few decades. Pilgrimage was the first tourism mobility to come into existence thousands of years ago. In recent decades, its significance has decreased, as other tourism segments have gained prominence. Although modern tourism is regarded as a relatively new phenomenon, its origins are clearly rooted in the age-old practice of pilgrimage. Indeed, the development of tourism is difficult to understand without a thorough comprehension of the practice of pilgrimage in ancient times.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper analyses the development of the pilgrimage phenomenon over the past few decades. The phenomenon of Pilgrimage Tourism and the nexus between the two mobilities has been experiencing tremendous changes over the past few decades and is still in the midst of an on-going process of transformation.

Findings

This paper concludes with the prediction that pilgrimage will re-emerge when the many similar segments – particularly, spiritual tourism, heritage tourism, religious tourism, dark tourism and secular pilgrimage – are re-identified as pilgrimage: a mobility for the search for meaning that contains an element of transformation that is often deep and enduring (as they were viewed at the dawn of humanity and for thousands of years).

Originality/value

This review has examined the development of pilgrimage tourism as a research topic, highlighting the importance of re-examining our contemporary usage of terms in order to allow for broader interpretations of different phenomena in the field of tourism. These conclusions are consistent with the current calls for a fundamental rethinking of the paradigms and the norms shaping scholarship on pilgrimage, dark tourism and tourism as a whole from a post-disciplinary perspective based on synthesis and synergy.

Citation

Collins-Kreiner, N. (2020), "Pilgrimage tourism-past, present and future rejuvenation: a perspective article", Tourism Review, Vol. 75 No. 1, pp. 145-148. https://doi.org/10.1108/TR-04-2019-0130

Introduction

Pilgrimage was the first tourism mobility to come into existence thousands of years ago (Timothy and Olsen, 2006). Although modern tourism is regarded as a relatively new phenomenon, its origins are clearly rooted in the age-old practice of pilgrimage. Indeed, the development of tourism is difficult to understand without a thorough comprehension of the practice of pilgrimage in ancient times.

This brief piece analyses the development of the pilgrimage phenomenon over the past few decades and concludes with the prediction that pilgrimage will re-emerge when the many similar segments – particularly, spiritual tourism, heritage tourism, religious tourism, dark tourism, and secular pilgrimage – are re-identified as pilgrimage: a mobility for the search for meaning that contains an element of transformation that is often deep and enduring (as they were viewed at the dawn of humanity and for thousands of years).

The phenomenon of Pilgrimage Tourism and the nexus between the two mobilities has been experiencing tremendous changes over the past few decades and is still in the midst of an on-going process of transformation.

A past perspective on pilgrimage tourism research: from the 1960s through the 2010s

Pilgrimage as a research concept, as distinct from a market segment, hardly existed before the 1990s. Its roots, however, reach back to concepts and theories – developed primarily by sociologists and anthropologists – that were analysed in the tourism literature of the 1970s and the 1980s and that focussed on the “visitor experience” and the psychosocial dynamics that drive different kinds of tourism, including pilgrimage (Cohen, 1979; 1992a, 1992b; 1998; Jackson and Hudman, 1995; MacCannell, 1973; Turner and Turner, 1969, 1978).

Several fundamental social ideas that featured in the study of pilgrimage in those years were: the “ritual process” (Turner and Turner, 1969); the holy site as the centre of the world (Eliade, 1969); “liminality”, a transitory stage between two established social statuses (Turner and Turner, 1969); “Communitas”, a specific kind of group dynamics that are characteristic of assemblies of pilgrims (Turner and Turner, 1978); tourism as a quest for the “authentic”, representing the pilgrimage of modern man (MacCannell, 1973); tourism as a “sacred journey” (Graburn, 1977) ; and five main modes of tourist experience based on the location and significance of the given experience within the tourist’s overall worldview (Cohen, 1979).

In the 1990s, new ideas and concepts were incorporated into pilgrimage research, including: a continuum of travel from “pilgrim as a religious traveller” to “tourist” as a vacationer (Smith, 1992); the heterogeneity of pilgrimage and pilgrimage as an arena for competing religious and secular discourses (Eade and Sallnow, 1991); two different types of pilgrimage centres – the formal and the popular (Cohen, 1992a); the complex relationship between pilgrimage and tourism and the similarities and differences between the tourist and the pilgrim (Cohen, 1998; Digance, 2003; Shinde, 2015); the relationship among religion, pilgrimage, and tourism (Timothy and Olsen, 2006); and de-differentiation (Collins-Kreiner, 2010, 2016).

Beginning in the 2000s, the definition of pilgrimage has come to accommodate both traditional religious and modern secular journeys, as researchers began to discuss the modern ideas of pilgrimage in the context of spiritual rather than religious motivations and actions. As more and more research has shown, large numbers of tourists are seeking a variety of experiences, including enlightenment, knowledge, improved spiritual and physical well-being and challenge. During this period, scholars have generated new knowledge about secular pilgrimage sites and secular aspects of pilgrimage research (Hyde and Harman, 2011). The current literature understands pilgrimage as a holistic phenomenon with religious and secular foundations (Collins-Kreiner, 2016) that encompasses sites that can emerge from both religious and secular contexts.

A future perspective: the rejuvenation of pilgrimage tourism

Based on the above analysis, it appears that pilgrimage is currently in a stage of rejuvenation and is therefore in the process of losing some of its unique attributes – in our case, its religious attributes, which constituted the original basis of its identity as a distinct type of tourism – and is simultaneously developing new identities, such as secular pilgrimage, spiritual tourism, religious tourism, church tourism, dark tourism and transformational tourism (Collins-Kreiner, 2016; Kiely, 2013).

Over the past decade, the word “pilgrimage” has become widely used in broad secular contexts. Scholars have begun to think about other forms of pilgrimage, such as spiritual tourists; “New Age” spiritual travel for pilgrimage, personal growth, and non-traditional spiritual practices; and increasing research on modern secular pilgrimage, in which the search for the miraculous is a trait shared by religious and secular pilgrims alike (Digance, 2003). All pilgrims are engaged in a quest for a mystical or magical religious experience – a moment when they experience something out of the ordinary that marks a transition from the mundane secular world of their everyday existence to a special and sacred state. These experiences can be described as transformation, enlightenment and life-changing or consciousness-changing events, although words appear to be inadequate to truly describe such experiences, which often defy reason (Kim and Kim, 2018; Liutikas, 2015).

Thus, in the past few years, new identities and concepts such as dark-tourism, spiritual tourism, and other market segments have developed and a number of sources have noted an increasing interest in tourism focussing on death, disaster and horror (Stone, 2012; Lennon and Foley, 2000; Stone and Sharpley, 2008). Dark tourism, for example, is part of the rejuvenation of pilgrimage, as they both emerge from the same milieu to include the sites of dramatic historic events that hold extra meaning (Collins-Kreiner, 2016).

Also noteworthy is the fact that the current literature is finding it increasingly difficult to differentiate among religious pilgrims, secular pilgrims, dark tourists, heritage tourists and pilgrimage, as they all are recognised as part of the growing phenomenon of tourist interest in sites that add meaning to life (Amaro et al., 2018; Collins-Kreiner, 2016; Terzidou et al., 2017).

Conclusions

This review has examined the development of pilgrimage tourism as a research topic, highlighting the importance of re-examining our contemporary usage of terms in order to allow for broader interpretations of different phenomena in the field of tourism. These conclusions are consistent with the current calls for a fundamental rethinking of the paradigms and the norms shaping scholarship on pilgrimage (Eade and Albera, 2015), dark tourism (Stone, 2012) and tourism as a whole (Winter, 2009) from a post-disciplinary perspective based on synthesis and synergy.