Abstract
Contemporary religious tourism, which in many cases is incorrectly identified with the phenomenon of pilgrimage, has developed in recent years as a separate form of migration and activity in the tourism space. However, in the literature of the subject, there is a large variety of problem perspectives, depending on the viewpoint chosen by the given author and the scientific discipline that he/she represents. The most frequently occurring problem is the terminological ambiguity regarding the concepts of ‘religious tourism’ and ‘pilgrimage’. The aim of this article is to draw attention to the diversity of understanding of the sacred space presented by its users, as well as the relations between non-religious aspects (profanum) of a sacred place and the essence thereof – the sacrum. The authors have attempted to answer the questions of whether the contemporary experience of sacred spaces affects (and how) the experience of the sacrum and whether or not the elements of profanum stand in opposition to the perception of sanctity of the pilgrimage site; as well as to attempt forming an analytical look at the importance of the terms in question in light of the contemporary research on traveling to sacred sites, and to draw attention to the manner of perceiving such a site through the form of migration and stay in the given place.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Duda, Tomasz and Doburzyński, Dariusz
(2019)
"Religious Tourism vs. Sacred Space Experience: Conflict or complementary interaction?,"
International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage:
Vol. 7:
Iss.
5, Article 2.
doi:https://doi.org/10.21427/38th-3e38
Available at:
https://arrow.tudublin.ie/ijrtp/vol7/iss5/2
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21427/38th-3e38