Religious Tourism or Beginnings of Pilgrimage? (A Case Study of the Tours to Meteora Monasteries, Greece)

Authors:

Pages: 136-160

Abstract:

This article presents some of the results from a study of tourist tours to Holy Meteora, Northern Greece, one of the most popular destinations for shortterm tourism in contemporary Bulgaria. The aim of this study is to objectively measure, identify, and characterize those tours having (or declaratively designed as having) some characteristics of pilgrimage or religious tourism as a newly emerging phenomenon in post-socialist Bulgaria in a real context, where real choices made by tourists are observed. The main questions to be explored are: if tourism to holy shrines still remains a “pure” tourist trip; if religious tourism to holy places traces its path to turn into a pilgrimage; what the reasons for the observed processes and who the agents to manage this complex process are

Keywords:

Holly shrines, pilgrimage, tourism, networks, pos-socialism

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