Motivation and personality traits for choosing religious tourism. A research on the case of Medjugorje

Abstract

Religion has long been a primary motivation for journeys and it is considered the oldest non-economic reason for travelling. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the reasons tourists choose to travel to sacred sites, with the specific aim of discovering relationships between personality traits and motivations for religious travel. Participating in the research were 679 Italian travellers to Medjugorje sanctuary, who completed the travel motivation scale and big five questionnaire. The results show that motivation is focused prevalently on the need for discovery in men and socialisation in women. Multiple regression analyses demonstrated that personality traits are predictive of motivation factors differently for males and females.Keywords: religious tourism; motivations; personality traits; big five questionnaire Introduction Why people travel to sites of religious significance is an important question in studying tourism. The role of religion as a catalyst for increasing travel, the importance of collecting and disseminating best practices for encouraging it, as well as practical tools for improving the management and sustainability of religious destinations were highlighted in an international conference on 'Tourism, religions and dialogue of cultures ' (UNWTO, 2008).One type of religious travel is the pilgrimage. There are evident links between tourism and pilgrimage in terms of both the journey and the experience of community; indeed, Turner and Turner (1978) famously claimed that 'a tourist is half a pilgrim, if a pilgrim is half a tourist ' (p. 20). According to the United Nation World Tourism Organization (UNWTO, 2008), nearly 300 million pilgrims visit religious sites every year all over the world, representing an expanding economic sector. For the tourism industry, pilgrims are generally treated like general tourists because pilgrims often have the same needs as general tourists and visit tourist-frequented places, such as museums, cafes, and shops, in addition to the religious sites. It can be stated that the pilgrimage is experiencing 'a marked resurgence ' (Digance, 2003) and is as popular now as it has been in the past.According to Shackley (2001), the pilgrim wishes to have a spiritual experience using travel as an act of fortification of faith. This can be accomplished through spiritual retirement in a sanctuary or through participation in some religious event such as mass or Tourism, 2013 Vol. 16, No. 5, 501 -506, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2012 Downloaded by [Costanza Scaffidi Abbate] at 06:03 06 July 2013 some other religious activity. Some people, probably, travel to maintain an identity, others to satisfy the feelings of nostalgia, some to experience the transcendent, and some to fulfill the requirements of particular faith-based groups, for example, the journey to Mecca for devout Muslims. Religious tourists, today, are considered 'pilgrims of modernity', choosing holy sites for reasons other than religious ones (MacCannell, 1976). Many different motivations, not of a relig...

Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage: Bibliometric Overview

“…For the former, the interest lies in the study of the motivations, interests, and spiritual or cultural needs which religious centres seem to have aroused (Abbate and Nuovo 2013;Amaro et al 2018;Raj 2012; among others), while for the latter, it represents opportunities for additional income and increased employment (Egresi et al 2014;Olsen 2012;Shackley 2001;Simone-Charteris and Boyd 2010;Tobón and Tobón 2013;Vukonic 2002). When considering its recent relevance, it is necessary to compile and analyse the academic papers published in the last years whose subject deals with this type of tourism.…”

“…However, religious issues are not the only ones considered by visitors to religious sites or events, and their motivation is composed of religious, cultural, traditional, spiritual, and landscape patterns, which often interact in the intention and decision to set out on a trip (Abbate and Nuovo 2013;Amaro et al 2018;Drule et al 2015;Hughes et al 2013;Kaewumpai 2018;Kim and Kim 2018;Olsen 2013;Terzidou et al 2018;Wang et al 2016). This means that, in the last decades, traditional pilgrimage destinations have also become tourist sites of multifunctional nature (Kaufman 2005) that welcome moved by their religious beliefs and those interested in their historical heritage or architectural, cultural, or artistic value (Hughes et al 2013;Hyde and Harman 2011;Fernandes et al 2012;Geary 2018;Musa et al 2017;Ramírez and Fernández 2018;Shinde 2007).…”

Religious Experiences of Travellers Visiting the Royal Monastery of Santa María de Guadalupe (Spain)

“…On the one hand, those experiences in Christian society remain mostly within the framework of the spiritual life of saints; that is, the inter-personal relationships which visitors establish with the legacy of saints by submerging themselves in spiritual experiences that spiritually approach the experiences of saints [31]. On the other hand, tourists also seek to gain knowledge for hedonistic purposes [42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61]. In other words, the educational motivation is related not only to religious but also cultural tourism.…”

“…In the context of religious tourism, the educational perspective has played a secondary role, commonly included as a socio-demographic element of research [33][34][35][36]. The vast majority of religious tourism studies on tourist motivations do not mention the educational aspect [37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45]. Others refer to it in the theoretical section but not empirically [46][47][48][49].…”

Alternative Tourism in Turkey

“…In the Middle Ages, travels for pilgrimage involved genuine religious beliefs; in the modern age, even when travel is driven by religion, people also want to see other (cultural) attractions (Abbate and Di Nuovo 2013). In the Middle Ages, travels for pilgrimage involved genuine religious beliefs; in the modern age, even when travel is driven by religion, people also want to see other (cultural) attractions (Abbate and Di Nuovo 2013).…”