Religious Tourism - a Finnish Perspective
Nieminen, Katri (2012)
Nieminen, Katri
HAAGA-HELIA ammattikorkeakoulu
2012
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2012120918779
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2012120918779
Tiivistelmä
This thesis deals with religious tourism. The objectives of this study are firstly to understand what religious tourism is, who the tourists attracted to religious tourism are, what the destinations and motives for religious holidays are and what the future of religious tourism looks like. This study is limited to dealing with Christian religious tourism.
There is a survey made to find out firstly how religious tourism is understood and what the important destinations for religious tourism are. Secondly, it is to find out how much interest there is for different forms of religious tourism, what destinations are interesting and what else is important when travelling for religious motives. A questionnaire is formulated and distributed in two different churches in Finland. The questionnaire consists of mainly structured questions and two open-ended questions. The results are calculated and evaluated using quantitative method with the help of Excel.
There are 78 respondents in this study, all Finns by nationality. According to this study, religious tourism is mainly understood to be about Israel, pilgrimages, missionary travel and Biblical tours. The most important destinations according to this study are Israel, Greece and Finland, which are all also seen as the most interesting religious tourism destinations. As for the most interesting forms of religious tourism, religious conferences and events together with visiting Biblical places are seen as the most appealing. The “dream come true” religious holiday for the respondents would be about traveling together with 1-2 other people, contain taking part in a church service, meeting local people and having fellowship with others. The most suitable length of a religious holiday would be one week. Among the recipients of this study , the motives for taking a religious holiday are mostly spiritual. According to the results, three propositions for possible religious holiday packages are made for tour operators.
There is a survey made to find out firstly how religious tourism is understood and what the important destinations for religious tourism are. Secondly, it is to find out how much interest there is for different forms of religious tourism, what destinations are interesting and what else is important when travelling for religious motives. A questionnaire is formulated and distributed in two different churches in Finland. The questionnaire consists of mainly structured questions and two open-ended questions. The results are calculated and evaluated using quantitative method with the help of Excel.
There are 78 respondents in this study, all Finns by nationality. According to this study, religious tourism is mainly understood to be about Israel, pilgrimages, missionary travel and Biblical tours. The most important destinations according to this study are Israel, Greece and Finland, which are all also seen as the most interesting religious tourism destinations. As for the most interesting forms of religious tourism, religious conferences and events together with visiting Biblical places are seen as the most appealing. The “dream come true” religious holiday for the respondents would be about traveling together with 1-2 other people, contain taking part in a church service, meeting local people and having fellowship with others. The most suitable length of a religious holiday would be one week. Among the recipients of this study , the motives for taking a religious holiday are mostly spiritual. According to the results, three propositions for possible religious holiday packages are made for tour operators.