Religious Tourism: The Way to Santiago

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
pilgrimage evolved into modern religious tourism, the emphasis on gaining
knowledge as a motivation for undertaking the journey increased (Swatos and
Tomasi (2002) in Timothy and Olsen (2006)).
An anthropological interest in the exotic other and in one’s own religious roots
similarly increased as a motivation for travel to sites of religious significance
(Galbraith 2000)
Today, opportunities for learning are often emphasized by organizers of and
participants in religious tours. (Timothy and Olsen 2006)
2.5.2 Cultural Motivation
The World Tourism Organisation (WTO) exposes the definition of cultural tourism
as:
“Movements of persons for essentially cultural motivations such
as study tours, performing arts and cultural tours, travel to
festivals and other cultural events, visits to sites and
monuments, travel to study nature, folklore or art, and
pilgrimages”
Although the WTO explains that pilgrimage is part of cultural tourism, different type
of motivations will be explained.
According to Richards (2007), not all cultural consumption by tourists is stimulated
by cultural motivations but sometimes as a secondary objective. For example if it
rains, tourists may forsake the beach for the museum. In this case cultural tourism
and the motivations to do cultural tourism are influences by other factors and act as
the secondary objective. This type of cultural tourism may be different in terms of
motivation and behaviour from those who set out from home with the intention of
consuming specific cultural manifestations.
David Mashhadigholam Rojo 19