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Penelope Monger  There’s a new kid on the tourism block: the “spiritual tourist”. As more people seek to understand different cultures, religions and faiths, they are searching out alternative tourism experiences, including visits to temples, mosques, shrines, churches and other spiritual destinations.
Farooq Haq is studying the concept of spiritual tourism for his PhD, at the Central Queensland University. However, Farooq says that while the term spiritual tourism is new, the phenomenon is not. “Travellers across the globe for decades have been seeking out experiences unique to the country that they’re in, and this includes visiting spiritual and sacred sites,” Farooq says, naming India as one of the more obvious places people travel for such an experience. “It is a part of human curiosity to search for some sort of multi-spiritual understanding among different people.” Where the waters muddy, then, is in the definitions of “spiritual tourist”, “religious tourist” and “pilgrim”. Farooq defines them thus: A spiritual tourist is someone who travels to a place with the intention of spiritual growth; and includes visits to spiritual sites, which may be of a variety of faiths or religions, as well as less tangible destinations, such as events, festivals and gatherings. A religious tourist is the person who only visits the destination sacred to his/her own religion, e.g. a Catholic visiting the Vatican. A pilgrim is one who organises and follows a pre-planned schedule to visit a particular, tangible, sacred site. Then the trip becomes a pilgrimage and the tourist a pilgrim.
For example, a non-Catholic visitor to Rome (Italy), may indulge in spiritual tourism by visiting the great cathedrals of that city, including St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. However, a Catholic pilgrim to Rome will have scheduled her/his visit to St Peter’s as the major point of the travel experience. “A pilgrim to a particular site is simultaneously a spiritual tourist; but a spiritual tourist is not necessarily a pilgrim.” Farooq says spiritual tourism is becoming very popular, in part due to the distress caused by religious intolerance across the world. “People are becoming upset by the religious polarisation in the world,” says Farooq, “They have a craving to explore other religions and other faiths. “We are curious to learn how people can really accommodate the beliefs and cultures and religions of other countries. “Australia, too, is part of the spiritual tourism revolution. We don’t only have beaches and pubs; we have great places of tranquility. “Further to that, we have inter-faith festivals and seminars that are attracting more and more people. Australians are becoming interested in exploring notions of peace, the environment and human rights from different religious perspectives. “One way of doing that is to visit different countries and see, first-hand, how those concepts and issues are dealt with.” Spiritual tourism is a progressive area of the industry that may provide economic growth in poorer countries, which are nonetheless richly steeped in religion and spirituality. Farooq Haq’s work has conceptualised spiritual tourism and defined it in relation to religious tourism and pilgrimage. The next phase of his study is to develop marketing strategies for the industry, to demonstrate how economic prosperity may be achieved in poorer countries through spiritual tourism.
Mr Farooq Haq is a PhD Candidate at the Central Queensland University, in the areas of religion, theology and tourism. He is also assisting the Pakistani Government to develop effective strategies to market spiritual tourism.
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