Fig. 1.1. The interrelationships between religion, tourism, and the environment.

      The purpose of this book is to examine the interrelationships between religion, tourism, and the environment (Fig. 1.1). This chapter sets the context for the other eleven chapters in this book by first briefly reviewing the literature between religion, tourism, and the environment, identifying gaps in the existing literature, and then presenting a conceptual model to understand the ecosystem of pilgrimage and religious tourism.

       Tourism and Religion

      There is a growing literature related to how religion and tourism influence each other (Timothy and Olsen, 2006). More particularly, this literature focuses on the similarities and differences between pilgrimage and religious tourism (Jackowski and Smith, 1992; Smith, 1992; Oberdick, 1995; Butler and Suntikul, 2018), with attempts to distinguish between leisure-inspired tourism and religiously motivated pilgrimages (Huntsinger and Fernández-Giménez, 2000; Bremer, 2000; Doron, 2005; Olsen, 2010; Shinde, 2012b; Damari and Mansfeld, 2016). These attempts have relied on the binary pairs of pilgrimage/tourism and pilgrim/tourist (Collins-Kreiner, 2010b; Olsen, 2010) binaries have also been used to illustrate the types of experiences different visitors have at sacred and religious sites (Fleischer, 2000; Poria et al., 2003).

      Many scholars have posited that religious tourism has its origins in religious practice of pilgrimage (Tomasi, 2002; Timothy and Olsen, 2006; Shinde, 2007b; Butler and Suntikul, 2018). Driven by religious needs and with religious and sacred places as its destination, pilgrimage is generally considered a form of tourism because of its use of existing tourism infrastructure for mobility purposes (Gupta, 1999; Timothy and Olsen, 2006). As Olsen and Timothy (2006, p. 7) argue, ‘A “pilgrim” is a tourist (religious tourist) who is motivated by spiritual or religious factors’. Indeed, religious tourism combines elements of both religion and tourism, which combinations vary depending on a person’s beliefs, needs, motivations, behaviour, and sought-after outcomes. However, there seems to be limited understanding of religious tourists– they are not a homogenous group (Olsen, 2013a). On the contrary, most religious sites will have a considerable blending of different types of religious tourists – from pilgrims who perform staunch rituals to those interested in the educational aspects of religious heritage to free-spirited travellers seeking to fulfill life goals through engaging with religious and spiritual practices (Huntsinger and Fernández- Giménez, 2000; Terzidou et al., 2008; Moufakkir and Selmi, 2018; Rodríguez et al., 2018). The nature of religious tourism and religious tourists differs based on religions, faiths, followers, religiosity, and the religious relevance of sites. The authors wonder if these different types of visitors lead to different kinds of impacts at religious tourism destinations. Moreover, do, different religious motivations translate into types of religious behaviour that have any bearing on the environmental impacts of religious tourism?

      In recent years, the seasonality and visitation patterns within the religious tourism niche market have changed (Shinde, 2007a, 2017). For example, while religious rituals and performances are at the core of the pilgrimage economy that revolves around ‘the concept of providing for the God and a sacred routine focusing on conspicuous consumption’ (Rösel, 1983, p. 51), recreational activities are generally more hedonistic in nature. This mix of sacred and secular motivations and activities – a distinguishing feature of religious tourism – can have significant impacts on religious tourism destinations in terms of numbers of visitors, when these visitors come, and the activities in which they seek to participate. Also, outside of special religious events and feast days on religious calendars, most religious tourism destinations, like any other mass tourist destination, experience peak visitation during weekends, particularly by local and regional residents (Shinde, 2018). At the same time, as noted below, increasing religious tourism by international visitors is beginning to lead to a lack of seasonality, with religious tourism taking place throughout the entire week.

      Some scholarship has focused on the broader philosophical aspects of these relationships, including cosmology, mythology, rituals, geography of sacred places, cultural performances, and religious-cultural heritage as related to religious tourism (e.g. McIntosh and Prentice, 1999; Olsen, 2003; Andriotis, 2011). However, until comparatively recently, little has been written on the more mundane aspects of religious tourism, such as infrastructure development, site management, and policy-making (e.g. Shackley, 2001; Petrillo, 2003; Raj and Morpeth, 2007; Rotherham, 2007; Shani et al., 2007; Henderson, 2011; Shinde, 2012a). Also, even though religious tourism causes negative environmental impacts at host destinations (Holden, 2003; Olsen and Timothy, 2006; Shinde, 2007a), little has been written on these impacts of religious tourism both at local and broader geographical scales.

       Tourism and Environment

      At a basic level, pilgrimage refers to the movement of people to a religious or sacred site. In many cases, such as the Kumbha Mela in India, which has approximately 120 million participants (both pilgrims and tourists), the sheer scale and magnitude of these pilgrimages makes them no different from mass tourism in terms of their environmental impacts (Shinde, 2018).

      There is a vast literature on the relationships between tourism and the environment (e.g. Holden and Fennell, 2012; Ballantyne and Packer, 2013; Mostafanezhad et al., 2016; Dowling and Newsome, 2018). Within this literature, scholars have proposed several models to understand these relationships better. For example, Cohen (1978, p. 228) has presented a conceptual model suggesting four key ways tourism and the environment are related. These four ways include the