Religious Tourism - from a Tourism Product to an Agent of Societal Transformation

The aim of this paper is to critically analyse the current scholarly and professional treatment of religious tourism that will amply illustrate the effect of the market- profit driven paradigm on product and attraction development before proposing the fresh few on religious tourism as a potential agent of individual and collective transformation of values. This paper is a result of a broader research on the project „Trans-Tourism – An integrated approach for the study of transformative role of tourism in the 21st century”1 which aims to critically investigate the role of tourism in attaining the vision for sustainable world of peace and harmony and to develop tools and options in order to provide policy proposals and practical models to harness the transformative power of tourism. The results indicate that religious / spiritual tourism really can foster both personal and societal transformation, mainly through the emphasis on the spirituality, or through providing experiences that make tourists reflect on their lives and their worldviews. In order to fully uphold this potential, we must step outside the mindset of religious tourism as a growing niche of tourism into the mindset of religious tourism as a transformation force that can facilitate personal and social change. Implications for further research are also presented.