Religion
Related: About this forumHow religious pilgrimages support a multi-billion dollar industry
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/24/14065120-how-religious-pilgrimages-support-a-multi-billion-dollar-industry?liteBy Holly Ellyatt, CNBC
LONDON -- International religious pilgrimage: the business of devotion and divinity, miracles and mysticism for millions of worshippers. It is both a life-affirming contemplation for the faithful and the lifeblood of the communities surrounding popular shrines.
Global pilgrimage tourism encompasses a multitude of businesses from tour operators and shrine administrators, to road-side souvenir stalls and pilgrims hostels.
Religious travel generates at least $8 billion a year for shrine-centered economies and provides employment for thousands, according to academics and being able to measure the celestial and spiritual elements of pilgrimage in monetary terms is far from a modern phenomenon; its as ancient as the act of spiritual travel itself.
Pilgrimage has always been commercial, as has religion, Manchester University professor Ian Reader told CNBC. The roots of tourism are in pilgrimage, as the first package tours in Europe were organized by Venetian merchants controlling the Mediterranean. They ran tours to the Christian Holy Land in medieval times.
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Response to cbayer (Original post)
littlemissmartypants This message was self-deleted by its author.
aquart
(69,014 posts)dimbear
(6,271 posts)You can easily imagine the result. OTOH, later, in the east, Muslim princes became too avid in taxing the pilgrims. You can easily imagine the result.
MineralMan
(146,317 posts)The Hajj attracts about three million devout Muslims each year. Each is as devoted to Islam as any Christian is to Christianity. It's so easy to forget that, isn't it? It beggars individual Christian pilgrimages in its size and economic impact on the region.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajj
And, yes, I've ended my brief boycott of the Religion Group.
MineralMan
(146,317 posts)when 70 million Hindu pilgrims came to Allahabad in India in 2007 for the Ardh Kumbh Mela, the worlds largest religious festival and also the worlds largest gathering.
Again, devout Hindus came in numbers never seen in Christendom to worship. It was the largest gathering of people in the history of the planet. Hinduism is equal in devotion by its adherents to any religion. Imagine the economic impact of this pilgrimage. The second and third largest pilgrimages in history were also Hindu-based and in India.
http://www.bukisa.com/articles/103407_top-10-largest-gatherings-in-history