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500 religious centre
There is no reason to believe that the religious
motive for travelling will weaken. Man has been
given reason and free will, so acceptance of God's
law is a question of individual conscience. This
view of religious freedom presupposes freedom
from any religious pressure. It argues in favour of
the view that religious tourism will become
increasingly individualised, and also that the visits
to the religious places will develop more or less with
the same intensity as in the past.
Further reading
Eade, J. and Sallnow, M.J. �eds) �1991) Contesting the
Sacred, London: Routledge.
Smith, V.L. �1992) `Pilgrimage and tourism: the
quest in guest', Annals of Tourism Research special
issue 19�1).
VukonicÂ, B. �1997) Tourism and Religion, London:
Routledge.
BORIS VUKONIC Â ,CROATIA
religious attraction see attraction, religious
religious centre
Religious centres are primarily places where a
certain religion `started' or where prophets were
mostly located when teaching the religious topics.
The most popular religious centre in Christianity is
Rome and the most important in the Islamic world
is Mecca. In some religions there are many religious
centres of different significance and importance.
Religious centres developed in two basic directions:
as closed centres, accessible only to priests
and other religious teachers or as places of
pilgrimage for large numbers of people. Centres
can be classified according to their importance into
religious centres of a global or international
significance and those of regional or local
significance, of which there may be dozens for
any one particular religion.
There are also specific places and smaller or
greater areas where believers come because of their
religious content or character. These locations, often
called pilgrimage centres or holy places, cannot be
directly included among the sacral structures or
buildings visited by both religious and pleasure
tourists, but should be considered the spatial framework
in which such contents are located.
Further reading
Bhardwaj, S.M., Rinschede, G. and Sievers, A.
�eds) �1994) `Pilgrimage in the Old and New
World', Geographia Religionum, vol. 8, Berlin:
Reimer Verlag.
Rinschede, G. �1992) `Forms of religious tourism',
Annals of Tourism Research 19: 51±67.
ÐÐ �1999) Religionsgeographie, Braunschweig: Westermann.
Rinschede, G. and Bhardwaj, S.M. �eds) �1989)
`Pilgrimage in the United States', Geographia
Religionum, vol. 5, Berlin: Reimer Verlag.
Stoddard, R.H. and Morinis, A. �eds) �1997) Sacred
Places, Sacred Spaces:The Geography of Pilgrimages,
Baton Rouge, LA: Geoscience Publishing.
GILBERT RINSCHEDE, GERMANY
religious festival see festival, religious
religious souvenir see souvenir, religious
remote sensing
Remote sensing is the gathering of information
about the earth's surface from a point above the
surface. This may be done by aerial photography
from an airplane, or by digital image scanners in
low and high-altitude satellites. Remote sensing
data is used in geographic information systems for
management of natural resources and land use
planning, all used to guide tourism development
and operation.
rent
ALAN A. LEW, USA
The practice of rental or hire allows the use of
spaces or durable objects, facilities and services for