Pellegrinaggio e turismo religioso: le immagini latenti

Abstract

This paper presents a survey of the most significant guidelines that emerge in the «demand» for religious travel, and it traces a qualitatively articulated pattern to be put in relation with some demographic, socio-economic, cultural and behavioral characteristics of people who take them. The demand results to be significantly aggregated around the following motivational patterns: (1) Recognizing to be part of humanity in the way to salvation; (2) Responding to a duty of institutional belonging to the Church; (3) Restoring body and spirit; (4) Identifying with the group; (5) Developing a personal journey of faith; (6) Renewing life; (7) Growing up with the others; (8) Living an interior experience; (9) Cultivating interpersonal relationships; (10) Experiencing the elsewhere. As a result, the dichotomous opposition that many definitions attribute to pilgrimage and religious tourism is very softened, in favor of a very complex structure of motivation and guiding images, capable of supporting behaviors that are very different from each other. The multiplicity of guidelines and the diversity of experience emerge in a way all the more significant as the distinction is not limited to consider purely geographical factors (the destinations) or organizational ones (the preparation and spiritual guide, the program contents), but it also invests the motivations and the subjectively oriented relations of travel participants.