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Travelling To The Inner Self: Tourism, Buddhism And Sustainability In The Alpine Area, Tatjana Thimm

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

This paper examines the interdependencies of tourism, Buddhism and sustainability combining in-depth-interviews with Buddhism experts and non-participant observation in a mixed-method approach. The area under investigation is the Alpine region of Austria, Germany and Switzerland, since it is home to Asian and Western forms of Buddhism tourism alike. Results show that Buddhism tourism as a value-based activity on the one hand is not commercial, but since demand is rising, on the other hand tendencies towards more commercial forms can be observed. As a modest form of activity Buddhism tourism does not shape the landscape of the Alpine area and by …

Impact Of Social Media On Spiritual Tourism In India: An Sem Analysis Of The Critical Factors Impacting On Decision Making, Alpana Agarwal, Komal Kapoor, Sandeep Walia

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Over the last two decades, an exponential rise has been observed in the growth of spiritual tourism where travellers are preferring and visiting places of religious inclination seeking to align their body and mind. In the current fast paced life where stress, anxiety, insecurities and depression have become common place, travelling to certain places that provide connection with the almighty or peace to the traveller has become very important. Spiritual tourism in India has always been very highly valued and is active as an industry in a country known as the land of temples and gods. Many globally popular destinations …

Can Spiritual Tourism In India Be Marketed Properly? Learnings From An Analysis Of Twitter, Veerasamy Senthil, Susobhan Goswami

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

The tourism sector is an economic powerhouse for any country and tourism growth improves the quality of people’s lives by providing employment of diverse kinds. Electronic word of mouth (e-WOM) has emerged to become a highly influential strategy of modern marketing and a significant medium as harnessed by travel marketers. Sentiments are a representation of human emotions and present a wide spectrum of varying intensity. The objectives of this research paper are to examine what propels a spiritual traveller towards Indian sites of interest, to appreciate the function of beliefs and where does it yield fruits? It also analyses the …

Revisiting The Inner Self In Times Of Debilitating Distress: Gateways For Wellness Through Spiritual Tourism, Manpreet Arora, Roshan Lal Sharma, Sandeep Walia

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

The COVID-19 pandemic has had devastating effects on our bodies, minds and souls. Having suffered it for more than a year now we know how crucial it is to tackle the pandemic at physical, psychological and spiritual levels. We have well-established Standard Operating Procedures alongside vaccines to deal with it at physical level, but equally crucial are mental and spiritual problems caused by COVID-19 (Chopra, 2020).

This paper seeks to explore certain gateways and possibilities of dealing with distress, despair, anxiety, angst, trauma and disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in diverse arenas of human activities to ascertain how crucial …

The Satisfaction Of Bangladeshi Pilgrims: Service Gaps In Spiritual Tourism Based On Gender And Expenditure, Mohammad Mominul Islam

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

This study sheds light on the satisfaction of pilgrims and service gaps of tour operators. Data were gathered from 236 Bangladeshi pilgrims in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia at Mecca and Madina and in Bangladesh in 2019. The results reveal that 94.9% of the tourists were satisfied with air services, followed by food, accommodation, Hajj- training, sightseeing, stone-throwing, Arafa, Mujdalifa, Meena and transportation services (75.8%, 61.9%, 56.8%, 54.3%, 54.3%, 53.4%, 52.5%, 51.3%, and 43.2% respectively. Under the Mann-Whitney U test, pilgrims’ perceptions of tour operators’ services significantly differed based on gender and expenditure of respondents. The results show that satisfaction …