Religious tourism: relevance for post-pandemic Ukraine

Abstract

The article is a presentation and analysis of the main provisions of 16 works of the world's leading experts on religious tourism and pilgrimage, published in a special issue of the International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage. 2020. Vol.8. This special issue was dedicated to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on religious tourism, and in particular pilgrimage, in the world. Religious tourism has a strong socio-cultural potential and demand - it is the value status of any person who feels the need for cultural, religious and recreational facilities important for spiritual, ideological and physical existence. It is also the availability of opportunities to meet the social and cultural needs of people in tourism services, because it has such a socio-cultural characteristic as a social practice that changes a person and positions him in the social space. Religious tourism became in the XXI century. significant, socially significant phenomenon. But the current pandemic has dealt a very painful blow to the entire tourism sector of the world economy, including religious tourism. Under the influence of the pandemic, the country banned pilgrimage. So the question arose: what's next? Is there a radical transformation of the religious life of mankind, including religious tourism? Isn't this the beginning of the end of religions, as some sociologists of the past predicted? This article is devoted to finding answers to these and other, no less complex, questions. The author set a goal - based on the analysis of the latest research on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on religious tourism to identify and present those important points that are already relevant for religious tourism in Ukraine, as well as those that are just beginning to appear and will be relevant in the post. -pandemic era. In almost all articles of this Special Issue, the authors emphasized that religious tourism and pilgrimage are very sustainable and will meet the challenges posed by the pandemic. The question for the religious tourism and pilgrimage industry is how they will develop and transform new approaches that will help the growth strategies of key stakeholders. However, due to pandemic restrictions, it may not be possible to resume travel to holy sites and pilgrimage sites and trails without the assistance of national governments, international agencies, and relief organizations. Thus, the authors predict that the religious tourism industry will face very difficult circumstances in the near future.
 All articles in the special issue of this journal express extremely relevant, deep and valuable opinions of scientists, which make us all think about what lessons Ukraine should learn about religious tourism, and in particular pilgrimage, and what should be its state policy and public opinion in this regard. further. And the author in the conclusions expresses her point of view on the content of these lessons, based on the views set out in this article of the world's best experts in religious tourism and pilgrimage.