Location
Monserrat
Start Date
25-6-2026 11:30 AM
End Date
25-6-2026 1:00 PM
Description
Mount Emei (China), one of Buddhism’s Four Sacred Mountains and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, attracts pilgrims and leisure visitors seeking spiritual meaning, nature connection and wellbeing. Yet East Asian sacred mountain traditions remain under-represented in religious tourism debates, particularly regarding how sacred landscape, ritual practice and ecological philosophies co-produce visitor experience. This research examines green spiritual tourism on Mount Emei by integrating restorative environments theory, nature connectedness, authenticity scholarship, and Turner’s concepts of liminality and communitas. Methodology adopts a qualitative case-study design, combining participant observation along sacred trails and at key temples with semi-structured interviews with pilgrims, leisure tourists, temple personnel and other local stakeholders. Data are analysed thematically across three domains: (i) motivations and expected benefits (spiritual needs, restoration, emotional transformation); (ii) practices and narratives that construct authenticity and “the sacred”; and (iii) sustainability tensions linked to crowding, infrastructural expansion and heritage governance trade-offs.
Three interrelated patterns emerge. First, visitor identities are hybrid: many participants traverse a pilgrimage–leisure continuum, using brief ritual acts (incense, chanting, offerings) to frame nature-based restoration and self-reflection. Second, authenticity is experienced as relational and embodied, through walking, sensory immersion in forest atmospheres, and encounters with monastic life, yet becomes fragile when commercialization intensifies and experiences are consumed as “checklists”. Third, liminal and communitas-like moments arise through collective ascent and shared hardship but crowding and platform-mediated visibility can dilute contemplative practices and heighten sensitivity to noise, waste and perceived disrespect.
By conceptualising sacred landscape as both cultural and ecological infrastructure, the paper extends theory on transformative spiritual tourism beyond Western pilgrimage settings and offers management implications: protecting quiet zones, aligning interpretation with Buddhist environmental ethics, and coordinating visitor flows with temple authorities to balance experience quality, cultural integrity and environmental sustainability.
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Included in
C3) Green Spiritual Tourism and Sacred Landscape Experience on Mount Emei, China
Monserrat
Mount Emei (China), one of Buddhism’s Four Sacred Mountains and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, attracts pilgrims and leisure visitors seeking spiritual meaning, nature connection and wellbeing. Yet East Asian sacred mountain traditions remain under-represented in religious tourism debates, particularly regarding how sacred landscape, ritual practice and ecological philosophies co-produce visitor experience. This research examines green spiritual tourism on Mount Emei by integrating restorative environments theory, nature connectedness, authenticity scholarship, and Turner’s concepts of liminality and communitas. Methodology adopts a qualitative case-study design, combining participant observation along sacred trails and at key temples with semi-structured interviews with pilgrims, leisure tourists, temple personnel and other local stakeholders. Data are analysed thematically across three domains: (i) motivations and expected benefits (spiritual needs, restoration, emotional transformation); (ii) practices and narratives that construct authenticity and “the sacred”; and (iii) sustainability tensions linked to crowding, infrastructural expansion and heritage governance trade-offs.
Three interrelated patterns emerge. First, visitor identities are hybrid: many participants traverse a pilgrimage–leisure continuum, using brief ritual acts (incense, chanting, offerings) to frame nature-based restoration and self-reflection. Second, authenticity is experienced as relational and embodied, through walking, sensory immersion in forest atmospheres, and encounters with monastic life, yet becomes fragile when commercialization intensifies and experiences are consumed as “checklists”. Third, liminal and communitas-like moments arise through collective ascent and shared hardship but crowding and platform-mediated visibility can dilute contemplative practices and heighten sensitivity to noise, waste and perceived disrespect.
By conceptualising sacred landscape as both cultural and ecological infrastructure, the paper extends theory on transformative spiritual tourism beyond Western pilgrimage settings and offers management implications: protecting quiet zones, aligning interpretation with Buddhist environmental ethics, and coordinating visitor flows with temple authorities to balance experience quality, cultural integrity and environmental sustainability.