Religious Tourism: The Way to Santiago

CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
6 CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
6.1 Conclusion
All the investigations and analyses made in the present dissertation had the objective
to try to identify if an increase of nonreligious tourists in religious tourist destinations
exists at the present time. From this fact could be deduced that what is known
nowadays as religious tourism, after numerous centuries nourishing itself exclusively
of religious people that made a pilgrimage to religious places solely motivated by
their beliefs, has a clearly tendency towards the cultural tourism.
After having investigated the city of Santiago de Compostela as a religious tourism
destination, chosen for the elaboration of this thesis, and having analyzed in depth
the results of the interviews, the following conclusions show the study based on the
results obtained from the sample formed by 489 visitors:
The results obtained after the analysis, show that although the difference is not very
significant, most of the tourists interviewed are, or nonreligious tourists or tourist
with a weak religious belief. That is why the results suggest that religious sites are
not merely visited by religious tourists and that the motivation to choose a tourist
destination is not bound with the religion of the visitor.
The results of the analysis made also show that the number of religious and
nonreligious visitors who make the Way of Santiago is very similar. These results
suggest that the more the tourist does the Way of Santiago the less are they
influenced by religion or for being a religious tourist destination but also by personal
motivations such as getting to know the culture or the tradition or the motivations
from other people doing the Way of Santiago.
David Mashhadigholam Rojo 57