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Religious Tourism Versus Secular Pilgrimage: The Basilica Of La Sagrada Família, Estela Marine-Roig

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

In recent decades, the number of tourists visiting religious buildings of special cultural attraction, mainly due to their exceptional architecture, has significantly increased. In such cases, it is hard to discern whether it is a question of religious tourism or of so-called secular pilgrimage. This paper analyses this issue by means of a paradigmatic case study: The Basilica of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Catalonia, a Roman Catholic church that receives over 3 million visitors a year; the part of the “unfinished cathedral”, built under the direction of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi, was registered in 2005 as a cultural site …