Turismo religioso y gestión de peregrinaciones

Abstract

In recent years, religion has been on the agenda of the mass media, either as the central axis of a series of conflicts materialized or channeled by terrorism, or as the impossibilities of a medieval institution whose problems lie in a certain impossibility to respond to the needs of its parishioners. For a long time it was thought that capitalist industrialization would bring about the irreducible death of religion, but far from that, a greater number of people are preparing to travel to centers of pilgrimage and do religious tourism around the world. Dean MacCannell emphasized tourism as a continuation of religion. If for the indigenous world the totem confers a certain protection and identity on the community, tourism has the same function in modern society. However, within this scheme, where do we locate the religious tourism, is this phenomenon a proof of social breakdown as MacCannell (1976) anticipated or an undeniable reality that religion still plays an important role in society?

Keywords

• pilgrimage
• Religion
• Religious tourism