Religious Pilgrimage Research Articles

The salience of stakeholders in religious tourism: A case study of the Dajia Mazu pilgrimage

Previous studies have focused on the relationship between religious tourism and some of its stakeholders. However, tourism's success relies on the commitment of all stakeholders. Based on stakeholder theory, this study assesses the stakeholder salience of a mass folk religious pilgrimage, the Dajia Mazu pilgrimage in Taiwan, by using fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The results indicate that temples, pilgrims, and host communities are more important than tourists, environment, businesses, and governmental bodies. Among the 18 contributions of all stakeholders, pilgrims' engagement, organizing temple management, food and drink sharing, host communities' engagement, and supporting temples' assistance are the most important. Organizers and administrators therefore need to identify key stakeholders and prioritize their contributions in managing pilgrimages and religious tourism.

Repercussions of mass gathering: COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 is a pathogen which is transmitted by the respiratory route may be sufficient enough to prove that mass gatherings, mass migrations and other types of clusters play a menacing role in the spread of contagious diseases. Globally, the source of several infectious diseases includes mass gatherings for sports events, religious events, concerts etc. People participating in such clusters as religious pilgrims, Olympic spectators and others becomes a carrier for leading to spread of disease. So any social gathering relating to religion or any other should be banned—guidelines developed by WHO are vital data for central organizations for formulating the multitude planning for a cluster. Risk evaluation, response, and monitoring are the basis of preparation; the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 31000 is a well-accepted risk management methodology. In India, control and preparedness are dependent on the state Government because of Nipah virus which was experienced by Kerala in 2018. Hence this state can maintain low mortality because of the use of contact tracing, social distancing and avoiding clusters. All the pandemic has made us realize the need to respect the species, social and environmental relationships to live and flourish. The epidemiological investigations should be carried out timely to confirm the cluster belonging to a particular family, workplace or public area. The strategies such as the reversal of social gatherings (such as work from home and home-schooling), social distancing and cancellation of social events can prevent mass gathering and a global threat of an epidemiologic expansion of disease outbreaks.

Religious Pilgrimage: Experiencing Places, Objects and Events

This article explores the concept of the Eventization of faith (Pfadenhauer, 2010) through application of three case studies, to identify learning that might be applied to a traditional pilgrimage destination, such as Jerusalem. This Holy City is held sacred by the three Abrahamic religions, and faith-based tourism is central both to the Holy Land and to the city of Jerusalem (Leppakari & Griffin, 2017). This paper builds on research that identifies processes and models that provide insight into the developing concept of the eventization of faith. The work examines outcomes from three different perspectives: - The impact of traditional church-led pilgrimages to places in the Holy Land, on participants and their local church communities. - The successful eventization of the Lindisfarne Gospels as part of their release to Durham University in 2013, and the impact on local historical, cultural and religious identity and heritage (Dowson, 2019). - The shared pilgrimage experience of thousands of Christian women participating in the annual Cherish Conference in Leeds, Yorkshire, held in a secular event venue (Dowson, 2016). In analysing these three case study examples, this paper aims to identify factors that might enhance our understanding of the concept of eventization of faith. Utilising face to face interviews and online survey results, the research focuses on the aspects of community, identity and authenticity. Events enable shared experiences in a faith context (Lee et al., 2015), and so this research develops a model that captures and expresses approaches that might encourage pilgrimages to traditional destinations, through the medium of events, adding insight into the development of the academic concept of Eventization of Faith.

The Language of Ruins: Greek and Latin Inscriptions on the Memnon Colossus

The Language of Ruins: Greek and Latin Inscriptions on the Memnon Colossus

Distribution, sources and potential toxicological significance of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the south west coast of Kerala, India

To assess the potential eco-risk of PAHs along the study sites (Site1 – characterized by tourist influx and a religious pilgrimage centre resulting in domestic and organic pollution and massive foot traffic. Site 2 – Neendakara characterized by oil pollution since it is a fishing harbour and port with large scale motor boat / trawler traffic. Site 3 –characterized by inorganic pollution of heavy metals, trace metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and organochlorins due to discharge of effluents from KMML Titanium dioxide industrial factory. Site 4 –control site since it is presumed to be near pristine being post tsunami and lacking any industrial / agricultural enterprise in the vicinity. The concentrations of N, B (a) A, Fl, ACN, and Ph cases were higher than effects range low (ERL) values, lower than the effects range median (ERM) values, except for Naphthalene and Acenaphthene. At site 2, the sampling areas are found to be stagnant with limited water circulation. Woefully, without attaining any pre-treatment on the issue, the regional industries and shipping harbor are still discharging their wastes into the area, resulting in high ∑ PAH concentration. An alarming fallout of the study is that site 4 also recorded appreciable concentrations of PAHs in the sediment, though it was found negligible in the water column. These results indicated that pessimistic eco-risks are likely to occur, although with a likelihood of 50% effects in this area. However, the remaining compounds were recorded below ERL values, which revealed the low risk of biological impairments. The study has disclosed various concentrations of PAH pollutants of low, moderate, and very high levels from the study sites signaling, effective sustainable management measures, and as a first step for long-term goals, the evaluation of water and sediments along the Kerala coastal ecosystem is recommended.

Establishing Medical Coverage and Epidemiological Surveillance during the Grand Magal of Touba in Senegal: A Public Health Need

The Grand Magal is a religious pilgrimage that takes place in Senegal. An estimated 4–5 million individuals yearly gather in the holy city of Touba. Pilgrims comes from the whole Senegal and surrounding countries and from countries outside of Africa where Mouride Senegalese emigrated. It is the largest Mass Gathering (MG) event of the Mouride community and the largest Muslim religious MG in West Africa. The context of the Grand Magal MG is unique given its location in a tropical developing country and its international component which may favour the globalization of local endemic diseases and warrants investment in modern methods for public health surveillance and planning of the event.

Bayreuth Festival 2019: Tannhäuser Premiere

The new production of Richard Wagner’s opera “Tannhauser”, presented in the program of the Bayreuth Opera Festival in 2019, has been analyzed. The work discusses the use by director Tobias Kratzer of modern techniques ofscenographic and directorial work, which combines traditional theater techniques and new achievements, multi-media and contexts that are associated with the personality of the author and the history of the festival. Personality of the composer and details of his biography were used both in the visual series of the film and brought into the image of the main character of the opera. One of the contexts of using the image of the composer was the replacement of the religious theme of the work with a cult of personality of the author, when the goal of religious pilgrimage instead of Rome is worship of art in Bayreuth. Additional meanings used in the production were the appeal to the characteristic images of German culture, which acquired idiomatic meaning and allusions to the conceptual art of the twentieth century. Such an unconventional approach to the interpretation of the plot has become a new page in the history of the festival productions of “Tannhäuser”.

The Conception of Pilgrimage in the Ancient Egyptian Religion

The concept of pilgrimage in most religions is similar to a great extent to the ancient Egyptian festivals and celebrations. This is shown in the way of performing the rituals and reviving of the religious myths. Festivals in ancient Egypt provided a good chance for people to gather and celebrate in a distinctive and traditional way.[i] Ancient Egyptians did not consider the celebration as representing a sort of their personal piety. Scholars debated that the ancient Egyptians thought of the celebrations was as a kind of change or an opportunity to alter their daily routine.[ii] So the research is focused on the religious concept behind the festivals and celebrations of the ancient Egyptians, and their relation to the personal piety. The research is applied to the festival of Osiris at Abydos as a model of the concept of celebration. It was chosen as a good example of the interaction of the public, and because they had a starring role in the rituals. The research compared the rituals performed during the Egyptian festivals pilgrimage to the religious proving that there are many points of similarity to religious pilgrimage. [i] Assmann, Religion and Cultural Memory, p. 40. [ii] Bleeker, Egyptian Festivals: Enactments of Religious Renewal, p. 23; Meskell, Private Life in New Kingdom Egypt, p. 171; Teeter, Religion and Ritual in Ancient Egypt, p. 56. [i] Assmann, Religion and Cultural Memory, p. 40. [ii] Bleeker, Egyptian Festivals: Enactments of Religious Renewal, p. 23; Meskell, Private Life in New Kingdom Egypt, p. 171; Teeter, Religion and Ritual in Ancient Egypt, p. 56.

Religious tourism and pilgrimage at Prislop Monastery, Romania: motivations, faith and perceptions

Religious tourism and pilgrimage at Prislop Monastery, Romania: motivations, faith and perceptions

De Eduardo a Eduarda: un poema inédito de Pondal á irmá morta

Exhumamos neste artigo un poema inédito de Eduardo Pondal, composto en recordo da súa irmá Eduarda, morta en Muxía cando pasaba uns días en compañía de Rosalía de Castro, co gallo da romaría da Barca.

The effects on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty by integrating marketing communication and after sale service into the traditional marketing mix model of Umrah travel services in Malaysia

PurposeWith growing mobility in a globalized world and an estimate of more than 300 million people going on religious pilgrimages every year, various researchers have been focusing on pilgrimage-driven travel services. In this context and within the Islamic religious tradition, the “Umrah” is used as a case study in this paper. In addition, this study also investigated the effects of Umrah SMM (promotion, place, people, product, price, process, physical evidence, marketing communication and after sale service) on customer satisfaction and loyalty toward Umrah travel agents in “Malaysia.”Design/methodology/approachConvenience sampling technique at four international airports in “Malaysia” was used to obtain data from Umrah travelers who had used Umrah services at least once. A total of 384 usable questionnaires were collected from this study and the data were analyzed using the partial least square.FindingsThe result indicated that the marketing mix has a significant positive effect on customer loyalty through customer satisfaction both directly and indirectly. This study will be of interest to the Umrah travel industry, for Malaysia and all the other countries, in understanding how marketing mix strategies are essential in maintaining a long-term relationship with customers.Originality/valueThe literature on Umrah travel services revealed that the traditional service marketing mix (SMM) of 7P’s is inadequate. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap and examine an innovative service marketing mix strategy for “Umrah Service” including marketing communication and after sales service. It investigates the effects of enhanced Umrah SMM on customer satisfaction and loyalty towards Umrah travel agents in “Malaysia”.

Pilgrimage, material objects and spontaneous communitas

Based on an ethnographic study of Lourdes, we contribute to tourism discussion on religious pilgrimage and communitas. Taking a material perspective, we prioritise spontaneous over normative communitas, and materiality over intangibility. We adopt the lens of tangible communitas to unpack the role of material objects in extending communitas beyond the spatial confines of the pilgrimage site. We explore how spontaneous communitas manifests in the material objects brought home from and left behind at the pilgrimage site. This reveals the portability of communitas and how it can be de-coupled from liminality and experienced in normative structure. The paper's focus on religious materiality also offers a renewed understanding of the extra-discursive importance of religious kitsch materiality.

Mountains as sacred spaces

ABSTRACT Sacred mountains are well known from all over the world, especially as places for pilgrimage. Classical phenomenology of religion used to present them as places of a hierophany and/or as spaces for a numinous experience. Although both these concepts – ’hierophany’ and ’numinous experience’ – have been the target of severe criticism in Religious Studies, it may be rewarding to redefine them as purely descriptive categories and discuss the applicability to various kinds of mountain-experiences: from religious pilgrimage in Late Antiquity as, for instance, climbing Mount Sinai, to extreme-sports in modern times as, for instance, free-soloing in the Yosemite National Park.

Традиционные и новые места религиозного паломничества в Бурятии

Традиционные и новые места религиозного паломничества в Бурятии

Religious to Spiritual Tourism - An Era of Paradigm Shift in India

Though it has been practiced from ancient times but still the phenomena of Spiritual Tourism is very much complex in the present era as it has not been recognized as a type of separate tourism. The emergent popularity of various spiritual practices of India in the western context has stimulated the visitor from the other part of the world to visit the land of spiritualism (India) for enhancing their self-consciousness. Billions of tourist are crossing the international borders, as they have never traveled so much and have not communicated with these diverse expressions of spirituality, faith and culture. The interaction stimulated by such encounters has the potential to evoke deep spiritual experiences and trans-formative spiritual growth. In a country like India where tourism is in the limelight for the religious pilgrims from many decades, but in the current scenario it is being observed that there is a huge migration of tourists from the western part of the world in terms of ‘Spiritual Tourism’. This Paper emphasizes the emergence of spiritual tourism as there is a dearth of fundamental academic research and it is important to do further research & investigation in the subject. It has also explored the potential growth and suggested the promotional strategies for the development of the Tourism Industry in term of spiritual tourism in India.

A Development Plan for Walking Tour Route Led by Local Resident

The aim of this research is to investigate the idea of developing a walking tour route as a form of cultural experience in the capital area, the administration of which would be overseen by local residents. The targeted research area would be centered on the route of the Gyeonggi Yetgil(Old Road) Yeongnam-Gil, a route that provides access to various natural beauties, religious pilgrimage sites (Catholic, Reformed Christian as well as Buddhist sites), and numerous other places attractive to potential visitors. The period of research would be from June to July 2019. The methodology involves case studies of local resident authority over walking tour paths, analysis of the environmental conditions of the research target route, focus group interviews and, of course, relevant literature review. The expected results and implications of the research: First, the capital area walking tour paths, such as Dulegil and hiking trail, etc. are mainly for walking paths. Thus, they should be constructed in a way that addresses the diverse demands of people for an experience-oriented walking tour path. Second, it is necessary to develop various routes that range from easy to hard. And third, creating a walking tour path led by the local residents will bring positive effects on the quality of life of the residents, including, an improvement of the living environment and a steady source of job opportunities, etc. enabling the development of a sustainable walking tour path.

Apparitions of Virgin Mary: Sociological Analysis

The main purpose of this article is to discuss the social aspects of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary, the development of apparition places, as well as the motivation and behavioral characteristics of pilgrims going to the miraculous places of the Virgin Mary in Lithuania. The article reviews the criteria recognized by the Church for assessment of the authenticity of apparitions, their characteristics, paradigm, and other scientific researches, a list of the Vatican-approved apparitions and apparition places in Lithuania. We used the main elements of the paradigm of apparitions for an empirical study of the officially recognized apparition in Šiluva, Lithuania. Finally, we also explore the complex motivation of religious tourism and pilgrimage. It relates to the manifestation of pilgrims’ personal or community values and identity as well as other cognitive or social motives. The paper concludes that the apparitions of the Virgin Mary take place in locations where social groups resist political, social, or moral change. Therefore, places of apparitions become a continuously re-created and re-interpreted social reality.

Pilgrims’ Motivation for Travelling to the Iasi Feast

Abstract Either due to religious and spiritual motivations or to personal ones, religious pilgrimages have become increasingly popular during the last decades. The article proposes a study concerning the motivations of pilgrims who travel to Iasi every year in October to attend a religious event organized in the city. The main goal of this paper is to present the results of the research concerning the main travel motivations of pilgrims. The issue is whether their socio-demographic profile influences their travel motivations and the extent to which pilgrims’ satisfaction is determined by the travel motivations they declare. This is quantitative research which uses a questionnaire survey, based on the data provided by 441 respondents. The results are important for the scholars in religious tourism and for destination managers who use this kind of data to improve their planning and organisational activities of such events.

Mahishi's rage: Communitas and protest at Sabarimala, Kerala

In September 2018, the Supreme Court of India lifted the ban on females of menstrual age entering the sacred site to Lord Ayyappan at Sabarimala in the Indian state of Kerala. Violent protests, for and against, engulfed Kerala throughout the main festival and pilgrimage season of 2018–19. This article explores the major sociopolitical and cultural forces that underpinned the violent protests at one of India’s (and also the world’s) major centres of religious pilgrimage. The central argument extends Victor Turner’s thesis in The ritual process to show how the dynamics of liminality and communitas created an intense vortex of crisis of potentially sociocultural transformational effect.

Incidence and Prevention of Invasive Meningococcal Disease in Global Mass Gathering Events.

IntroductionMass gathering events involve close contact among large numbers of people in a specific location at the same time, an environment conducive to transmission of respiratory tract illnesses including invasive meningococcal disease (IMD). This report describes IMD incidence at mass gatherings over the past 10 years and discusses strategies to prevent IMD at such events.MethodsA PubMed search was conducted in December 2018 using a search string intended to identify articles describing IMD at mass gatherings, including religious pilgrimages, sports events, jamborees, and refugee camps. The search was limited to articles in English published from 2008 to 2018. Articles were included if they described IMD incidence at a mass gathering event.ResultsA total of 127 articles were retrieved, of which 7 reported on IMD incidence at mass gatherings in the past 10 years. Specifically, in Saudi Arabia between 2002 and 2011, IMD occurred in 16 Hajj pilgrims and 1 Umrah pilgrim; serotypes involved were not reported. At a youth sports festival in Spain in 2008, 1 case of serogroup B IMD was reported among 1500 attendees. At the 2015 World Scout Jamboree in Japan, an outbreak of serogroup W IMD was identified in five scouts and one parent. At a refugee camp in Turkey, one case of serogroup B IMD was reported in a Syrian girl; four cases of serogroup X IMD occurred in an Italian refugee camp among refugees from Africa and Bangladesh. In 2017, a funeral in Liberia resulted in 13 identified cases of serogroup C IMD. Requiring meningococcal vaccination for mass gathering attendees and vaccinating refugees might have prevented these IMD cases.ConclusionsMass gathering events increase IMD risk among attendees and their close contacts. Vaccines preventing IMD caused by serogroups ACWY and B are available and should be recommended for mass gathering attendees.FundingPfizer.