Religious tourism in San Giovanni Rotondo, the worship of Padre Pio: narrations and testimonies

4C - Stakeholders / Governance

New meanings, new perspectives and renewed interests increasingly converge on tourism and pilgrimage (Collins-Kreiner, 2010; Kong, 2001; Sharpley, 2015). Post-modernism, such as the mercy of pilgrimage (Henderson, 2010), the secularisation of society leads to a weakening of spiritual experience and its transformation into a tourist experience. Pilgrims also become victims of modernity that affects the personal and existential authenticity of the pilgrimage, transforming spirituality into an inauthentic experience that undermines the simplicity, values and modalities of religious travel (Qurashi, 2017). The work is aimed at showing the radical changes that took place in San Giovanni Rotondo (Foggia, Italy) where he lived and worked Father Pius by Pietrelcina, now San Pio. Devotion to the Holy One occupies an important segment of tourism in San Giovanni Rotondo, and religious travels in this place have become over time, and more and more secular travel patterns emerge. The worship of Padre Pio seems to be increasingly characterised by tourist behaviour that takes the outward forms of pilgrimage losing its most important aspect: the idea of sacred and devotional (Nocifora, 2010).