Towards a typological model of contemporary Christian travel

Abstract

Christian pilgrimage began to develop during the Byzantine era. It was characterized by the presence of pilgrims at various main destinations in the Holy Land – sites mentioned in the New Testament. Today, some 1700 years later, this phenomenon has developed and spread throughout the entire Christian world, and Christianity, the world's largest religion, has developed an enormous number of overlapping Christian travel products. The aim of this article is to suggest and present an emerging and up-to-date typological model of contemporary Christian travel. Various tourism models and typologies have been developed by social scientists, and in the context of religious tourism, a few have been developed by religion and tourism specialists. In the context of Christian travel, however, there are only a couple of case-study-based typologies, all with a focus on Europe. The typology presented here makes a distinction between activities, practices and destinations related to pilgrimage and other non-pilgrimage forms of Christian travel. The typology comprises three categories of Christian pilgrimage and six categories of other forms of Christian travel. This typology can be used by students, scholars and tourism practitioners at three different levels: descriptive, analytical and interpretational.