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International Journal of Business, Management and Social Sciences Vol. 2, No. 3, 2010, pp. 59-65

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BUSINESS, MANAGEMENT AND SOCIAL SCIENCES www.ijbmss-ng.com © 2011 MultiCraft Limited. All rights reserved

Epistemological aspects of religious tourism in rural areas I. C. Alecu 1* 1*

ICES ,,Gh. Zane" lasi- Branch of Romanian Academy, Romania, Scholar within The Knowledge Based Society Poject, POSDRU ID 56815, ROMANIA * Corresponding Author: e-mail: [email protected] Tel 004 0332 106507

Abstract Religious tourism is an internationally expanding phenomenon and conceptually, practice greatly exceeded both theoretical advances and practical regulations. In this field, practice is far more developed than the theoretical approaches. The current trends and attempts to resolve this situation are not properly correlated, failing to capture the real image of religious tourism, with its particular difficulties and potential. Also, there are difficulties regarding the definition of tourism principles and regulations, regardless of the religious motivation of the tourist. There are also some reservations in using the term religious tourism especially because of the connotations associated to this notion by tourism companies and also because of the way in which they structure their service packages. In the context of building up a knowledge-based society, new epistemological delimitations of religious tourism’s fundamental concepts are needed. We propose a theoretical development of the main concepts involved: rural tourism, religious tourism, pilgrimages. Keywords: religious tourism, rural tourism, religious tourism forms. 1. Introduction Practice emphasizes that religion has played an important role for the development of many activity fields and also for human development. Many researches deal with religious phenomenon and analyze it as a determinant factor, a cultural element, and an important component of economic and social activities. One of the first qualitative evaluations regarding the ratio between economy and religion was expressed by Max Weber (1856-1920) in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. This viewpoint has been constantly reevaluated, completed or disagreed with by numerous specialists (Robert Barro, Rachel M. McCleary, Robin Grier etc.). In Romania, religion came to researchers’ attention between 1990-2000. Vladimir Trebici underlined the role of religion as determinant factor for many social, economic, demographical etc. processes. Motivation for tourism services consumption in rural areas is diversified, being intimately related to needs such as physical recreation, relaxation, thirst for knowledge, cultural identity discovering, etc. When religious rural tourism is analyzed, the range of determinations is limited and the personal and intimate aspects have a high percentage. There is a direct connection between the "legacy"of every religious denomination, the family value system and the motivation for pilgrimage, to the detriment of the modern promotion methods. These aspects are very important in rural areas, in regions such as Bucovina or Maramureş, where the traditions and the enherited values have been better preserved. Culturally, these areas are special especially because traditions and values cannot be separated from the religious element. The knowledge-based society is also a new concept. It calls into question important principles for the development of religious tourism in rural areas. By this research, we intend to make some contributions to certain aspects such as the conceptual framework of rural tourism in rural areas, its importance to the new socio-economic context at national and international level and potential connections with the knowledge society. The main premises are the following: o religious attraction is an important element of the rural tourism services consumer’s motivation; o the conceptual framework for rural tourism is poor; o rural areas enjoy a special religious tourism potential; o among rural tourism services, the religious component is poorly exploited

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o o o

religious tourism and knowledge-based society are relatively new concepts with common principles promoting religious tourism can be done through the knowledge society instruments religious principles can be an important component in building the knowledge society

2. Conceptual boundaries regarding religious tourism There is a lack of information and basic theoretical elements essential in providing regulations for religious tourism development areas. Analyzing the concept of religious rural tourism, one notices many controversies arising from various points of view, such as religious authorities, researchers, tourism tour operators. At first, people’s journeys to various religious establishments (monasteries, hermitages, cathedrals etc.) were considered not more than pilgrimages by religious authorities and local administrations, with deep implications regarding local development. Against the background of a lack of theoretical reglementations and clear definitions, the practical approaches of tourism agencies materialized as specific services within packages more or less dedicated to these needs, which led to an even more ambiguity of the part of the consumer. The analysis involves concepts such as: rural tourism, pilgrimage, religion, culture, consumption need, terms developed during years of observations and theoretical and practical advances. Joining two such complex notions in order to obtain the third - "religious rural tourism" - requires a phenomenological qualitative analysis as part of a dominantly comprehensive outlook. With this end in view, we evaluate the importance of numerous interactions and associations on the basis of the relation between religious destination and the tourist’s consumption motivation. These concepts, apparently not convergent, require more profound and systematic boundaries in order to give the chance to a sustainable development. According to Dictionnaire Touristique International (1969), tourism is the set of measures designed to help the tourist or a specialized company to organize a time-limited travel for pleasure or any other purposes. The Dictionary of Marketing and Business defines tourism as a socio-economic phenomenon that involves the relations and activities taking place within a country and also within the circuit of material and spiritual values exchanged between countries while spending one’s leisure time. The WTO Conference in Ottawa (June, 1991) redefined tourism, stating that the term refers to the activities undertaken by persons during their travels in places outside their residential areas for more than 24 hours or at least one night and less than a year for leisure, business and other purposes not related to the exercise of an activity remunerated from within the place visited (Mill, 1992). Analysing these definitions, at least five elements appear as important to tourism activities (Matei, 2005): o tourism activities go beyond routine and beyond the area in which the routine activities take place; o tourism means travelling but not necessarily means of transportation; o tourism means accommodation at the destination place (hotels, motels, campings, residences of tourists’ relatives or friends etc.) for at least one night; o regular meals provided at destination; o there is a personal motivation; the destination motivates the consumer; certain facilities are needed in order to support the consumption. The notion of rural tourism developed from the initial identification of both motivation and destination (rural area). The concept of religious tourism was explained by stressing the major difference in respect to other types of tourism, i.e. the spiritual motivation. We do not consider the association between religious motivation and tourism activities sufficient in order to determine the concept of religious tourism. This mere association generates a frequently met confusion between religious tourism and pilgrimage. We shall now demarcate several specific elements of pilgrimage as a form of travel that are relevant to our argumentation: o there exists a motivation of travel and it is profoundly religious; o destination - religious one; o the activities in which the pilgrim voluntarily engages have religious significance (ceremonies, current activities, penance); o the quality of services is not regulated and depends on the local offer from the religious or public administrations; o spending 24 hours does not necessarily mean accommodation in tourism structures; the accommodation is usually freely offered or the quality and the price are both very low; o means of transportation - quality is not necessarily a criterion in selecting them. Generally, religious tourism is a mix between elements of religious attraction, general tourism motivation, and transportation. In the practice of tourism agencies, the management exploits both dimension of the potential client, that of pilgrim and that of tourist, and the delimitation is not conceptualized at the level of tourism product (transportation, board and lodging, complementary activities etc.). To render complete the concept of religious tourism, we focus upon other significant aspects: • the destination is rural, in a religiously meaningful place and the activities involved go beyond the usual or routine ones; • it involves travelling; • the accommodation at the destination place is for at least one night;

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• all services are characteristic of rural tourism and of a regulated and acknowledged quality; • it does not necessarily involve the tourist’s believe in a certain religion; • it involves a spiritual motivation regarding a spiritual-religious site or with a certain religious significance; • the destination may involve complementary motivations specific to tourism To our approach, an important aspect of these demarcations is the one between religion and culture. We intend an epistemological approach of these notions, but first of all some specifications are needed. Even if including the religious element into the explanation of the concept of culture entails the need to treat religious tourism as subsidiary to cultural tourism, the practical way of its manifestation requires a separate approach. It is obvious that sometimes we cannot make a major distinction between the elements, i.e. when we visit religious sites and holy places etc., historical and cultural heritage. Thus the motivations of some consumers are complementary to each another. From this point of view, Cohen proposes a classification according to the way of spending the free time: tourists interested in existential problems; tourists interested in new experiences/knowledge; tourists interested in relaxation/entertainment. Pavicec, following Smith, makes a parallel between two opposite categories: tourist and pilgrim on one hand, the sacred and the profane on the other hand. Adjusted to the motivation of travelling (Stănescu, 2002), this approach is presented in Figure1:

Pilgrimage I

Belief

Religious tourism II

III

Tourism IV

V

Profane faith/culture Entertainment Figure 1. Motivation for tourism and pilgrimage Figure 1. Motivation for tourism and pilgrimage

Analysing the information in Figure.1, some important aspects need detaliation: • In the first case the belief is the fundamental motivation and we are dealing with a pious pilgrim, dedicated to a deeply spiritual path; • In the second case the belief motivation is stronger than the tourism motivation and thus we are dealing with the majority of pilgrims; • In the third case travelling has multiple motivations either equally powerful or complementary; the consumer shows the need for culture and also for accumulating new experiences; • In the third case the cultural needs are interweaved with the needs for entertainment, and visiting religious sites is but a source of knowledge and active relaxation; • In the last case we are dealing with the usual tourism, where the motivation for relaxation and entertainment is predominant. As far as Romanian religious rural tourism is regarded, the motivation is intimately correlated with certain specific aspects: monastic life with the past and present human values characteristic of this area, the special religious artefacts, monasteries (many of them are historical and some even UNESCO monuments), religious manifestations/holidays that are extraordinarily beautiful and picturesque. Religious tourism becomes more and more important for the tourism services packages provided by the tour operators. Also, an ever greater role in promoting tourist destinations is played by religious institutions and they have created special departments for tourism. In Romania, apart from pilgrimage centres, the parish priests promote intensely this type of tourism during divine services. Because of the fact that a special interest is shown for foreign touristic areas, through these pilgrimages we in fact deal with export of religious tourists. The Church needs an efficient marketing policy to attract foreign tourists. 3. Religious tourism-ways of manifestation The first classification takes into account general tourism concepts: • domestic religious tourism - the residents of a country visit their own country; • inbound religious tourism - the non-residents of a country visit another country (different from their own); • outbound religious tourism - the residents of a country visit another country.

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Another three forms of tourism can be associated to the above ones: • internal religious tourism - it comprises domestic tourism and inbound tourism; • national religious tourism - it comprises internal tourism and outbound tourism; • international religious tourism - it comprises inbound tourism and outbound tourism. Starting from the notion of religious cultural tourism, we can speak about two types of travels: 1. Monofunctional travel - its sole purpose is religious and here we mention the religious travels undertaken during ceremonies dedicated to a certain religious act, religious sites with miracle-working icons, etc. Here the tourist is similar to the pilgrim. 2. Plurifunctional travel - it combines the religious purpose with the cultural one and thus the number of sites to be visited is very large. According to the nature of the religious beliefs, we can identify: • Christian tourism; it can be grouped into the following categories: o Orthodox tourism o Catholic tourism o Protestant tourism • Hindu tourism • Judaic tourism • Islamic tourism etc. According to the periodicity of tourist flows: • Seasonal religious tourism - it depends on the main events, ceremonies, festivals • Weekly religious tourism, especially on weekends - Sunday for Christians, Sabbath for Jews etc. • Random religious tourism - it depends on leisure time, occasional spiritual motivation, financial disponibility According to the number of tourists and the method of organization: • organized or mass religious tourism; • microtourism or semiorganized into small groups and at private initiatives; • individual religious tourism. As regards Orthodox religious tourism, some essential elements can be detailed (Alecu, 2003): • Occasional religious tourism • Exceptional religious tourism 1. Occasional religious tourism involves travelling to monasteries: • hermitages and monasteries near the emitent localities • main monasteries/metropolitan churches in the region Main characteristics of occasional religious tourism: o it is designed to fulfil specific religious duties; o generally, the tourists do not stay for the night, except for the large monasteries; o it is intensely personal; o the expenses with other touristic services are occasional; tourists usually travel in small groups and use their own means of transportation. o 2. Exceptional religious tourism is occasionated by important religious events and it can be grouped into the following recipient destinations: • church in the village; • hermitages and monasteries of less importance near rural localities; • important monasteries or cathedrals/metropolitan churches in the area. Exceptional religious tourism has the following characteristics: o it is generated by the great religious events; o it becomes a mass phenomenon in the case of pilgrimage to important monasteries; o tourists stay for the night; o on the occasion of undertaking pilgrimage to village churches, tourists also visit their relatives; o it generates expenses due to other touristic or complementary services as well; o tourists mostly use public transport; o travelling groups are larger; o it requires special preparations from the part of organizers; o it is time- and space-limited, which allows the organizers to anticipate and prepare it.

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4. Potential connections between the knowledge society and religious tourism in North-East Development Region, Romania Geographically, North-East Development Region corresponds to the Metropolitan Church of Moldavia and Bucovina, and the administrative point of view includes six counties. Of the approximately 200 monasteries that belong to the Metropolitan Church of Moldavia and Bucovina, many are of national and even international interest. In the six counties, Bacău, Botoşani, Iaşi, Neamţ, Suceava and Vaslui, administrated by three archdioceses (Iaşi; Suceava and Rădăuţi; Roman and Bacău) and a diocese (Huşi), hundred of thousands of pilgrims come every year, attracted not only by the beauty of these places but also by the intense spirituality that is omnipresent in this area. The number of religious establishments in the region regardless of their nature: churches (in towns or villages), praying houses, mosques, hermitages in the North East Development Region: Table 1. Distribution of religious establishments according to religion orientation in the counties of North-East Development Region (2009) RomanCatholic

Orthodox

Bacău Botoşani Iasi Neamţ Suceava Vaslui Total

413 381 499 417 440 430 2580

Old Orthodox Church

Judaism

106 7 38 42 54 4 251

4 4 8 3 10 3 32

Adventist

11 7 15 29 35 12 109

Evangelist

31 39 28 24 47 21 190

13 21 18 9 27 22 110

Other religion

Baptist

7 16 6 15 28 3 75

Total

6 7 6 9 23 5 56

591 482 618 548 664 500 3403

Source: processed data

Of the 3 403 religious establishments usually visited by people, the majority are Orthodox, 75.8%, then Roman-Catholic,7.4%, and 5.6% are Adventist. Also, there are many Orthodox churches in the counties of Iaşi, Vaslui and Botoşani (more than 80%). Suceava County has the most important variety of religious buildings, 34%. The largest number of Roman-Catholic churches is to be found in Bacău. There are numerous monuments harbouring relics of saints such as Saint Parascheva in Iaşi, Saint Ioan in Suceava etc., church relics, miracle-working icons. These are elements of great attraction from both the spiritual-religious but mostly touristic points of view.

Orthodox

Vaslui

Roman-Catholic

Suceava

Judaism

Neamţ

Old Orthodox Church

Iasi Adventist

Botoşani

Evangelist

Bacău

Baptist

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

Other religion

Figure 2. Distribution of religious establishments The North Moldavia monasteries became UNESCO heritage in 1993 and are the following: Voroneţ Monastery, Humor Monastery, Moldoviţa Monastery, Probota Monastery, Monastery of Saint John the New of Suceava, Pătrăuţi Monastery, and Arbore Monastery.

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In terms of marketing, very little religious tourism is promoted. The Tourist Information Centre is an important instrument in promoting tourist destinations and its priority is to present the entire offer of tourism services. Its duty is to inform the clients and help them find accommodation, to promote and sell tourism programs, to organize events, to sell tourism products and souvenirs, etc. In the North-East Development Region there are 11 Tourist Information Centres, 8 of which being on the list of central administration (Minister of Tourism). There are also 3 tourist information points in Suceava County. Their county distribution is presented in the following table: Table 2. Distribution of information centres in the counties of North-East Development Region (2009) Suceava Iaşi Neamţ Bacău Information centres 4 3 2 2 Information points 3 Source: processed data

There are no Tourist Information Centres in the counties of Botoşani and Vaslui, these areas being acutely marginalised from this point of view as well. Only Saint Parascheva Pilgrimage Centre of Iaşi is specialized in religious tourism/pilgrimage services, but it is not included on the list of the Minister of Tourism. It promotes spirituality and culture in the local and international ecumenical context. People of all cultures and orientations are encouraged to discover, to know and to appreciate the monuments with religious, historical and artistic value in Romania (especially Bucovina). Services provided: • Pilgrimages in Romania • Pilgrimages abroad • Town sightseeing tour and trips through Iaşi and to the monasteries around Iaşi; • Trips, expeditions, and study camps for various activity fields; • Accommodation in guest houses and lodging places of the Church, in Romania; • Renting means of transportation for people: automobiles, microbuses, buses; • Tourist group leaders and guides certified by the Tourism National Authority for the Romanian, English, French and German languages; • Counseling for pilgrimages, study trips; • Information services for religious tourism; database A knowledge-based society in which tourism has a very well defined framework can very much contribute to the limitation of interpretation errors and abuse of any kind, to overcoming religious and cultural barriers. Main trends at national and international level of religious rural tourism: • Increase in the number of tourist migrations and persons who wish to visit religious tourist sites; • Ever more important role of the Internet in promoting the religious tourist attractions in rural areas; • Increase in the number of sacred placed of religious importance in rural areas; • Sacred places all over the world are visited every year by hundred of thousands of tourists of ever more various religions and denominations; • Development of new religious tourist attractions apart from the already notorious ones, specific to the nowadays knowledge-based society; • Active implication of religious bodies, regardless of their nature, in organizing and completing religious tourism packages, attracting tourists and pilgrims especially, and regulating some attitudes characteristics of sustainable development; • Changing pilgrimages into mass activities especially by means of the instruments specific to knowledgebased society; • More disponibility from the part of religious bodies towards the new instruments specific to information society; • Active implication of religious bodies in standardizing concepts, good behaviour regulations and attitudes regarding the forms of religious tourism manifestation The knowledge-based society as it is now defined by the European Union is seen as representing a set of values and principles, all converging mostly towards the values promoted through religious dogma. At the same time, the Christian Church seems ever more open towards science and technological progress. From our point of view, religious tourism and knowledge-based society have the following functional vectors in common: o management of individual development based on sound principles according to which family and moral must have priority; o improve service quality; o reduce social exclusion and increase tolerance o management of knowledge used in a moral way at global level

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o o o o

protect the environment ensure sustainable society through specific knowledge management deepen knowledge on human existence develop knowledge and innovation culture based on sound value system

5. Conclusions The notion of tourism is closely related to some essential aspects: motivation, travel, length of time, quality of services. Religious tourism is that the tourism whose purpose is the visiting of religious sites with spiritual implications. The difference between this form of tourism and others is the religious motivation of tourists. There is much confusion between pilgrimage and religious tourism due to tourism companies on the one hand as this is the way in which they label the tourist packages they offer, and on the other hand because of the usual perception. A pilgrim can become a tourist or he/she can be statistically evaluated as a tourist if he/she needs accommodation for at least one night. There exists a great reserve in using the term religious tourism especially because of its connotations, social contingencies. It is considered that the public expression of one’s religion, the religious ways of manifestation and the ways in which religion circulates from one generation to another may be a discriminatory attack against religious minorities and their religious freedom. However, religious tourism potential is a particular one, which reinforces once more the idea of dealing separately with the phenomenon of religious tourism. Religious tourist attractions are entirely particular and their forms of manifestation are impossible to reproduce. Acknowledgement This paper was accomplished within The Knowledge Based Society Project supported by the Sectoral Operational Programme Human Resources Development (SOP HRD), financed from the European Social Fund and by the Romanian Government under the contract number POSDRU ID 56815”. Thanks for the funds and support. We would also like to thank the reviewers for very constructive and detailed comments. We have corrected and improved the paper by incorporating the reviewers’ comments as much as we possibly could in the final version.

References Alecu, Ionel Ciprian, 2003, Turismul religios, forma a turismului rural, in collection Turismul rural românesc, PIM Publishing House, Iaşi. Bădulescu, Alina, Ban, Olimpia,2005. Turismul religios. Amfiteatru Economic, no. 18, November. Matei, Daniela, 2005. Turism rural. Teorie si aplicaţie, Terra Nostra Publishing House, Iasi . Nistoreanu, P., 2002. Management în turism. ASE Publishing House, Bucureşti. Nistoreanu, P. , 2003. Ecoturism şi turism rural. ASE Publishing House, Bucureşti. Pilbath, A. , 2003. Ghid ecoturistic, Blueprint Internaţional SRL Publishing House, Bucureşti. Robert Christie Mill, 1992. The Tourism System - An Introductory text. Second Edition. Prentice Hall International Editions, New Jersey. Razaq Raj, Nigel D. Morpeth (eds), 2007. Religious tourism and pilgrimage festivals management, CAB International, 2007. Stănescu, Ion, 2002. Potenţialul turistic românesc – Eldorado al viitorului. Paco Publishing House Smith V L, 1992. The quest in guest. Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 1, pp. 1-17. Stănciulescu, Gabriela, 2001. Managementul operaţiunilor de turism. ASE Publishing House, Bucureşti. Al. P. Tacu, Vasile Glăvan, 2004. Turismul rural românesc, Tehnopres Publishing House, Iaşi. Biographical notes I. C. Alecu belongs to ICES, Gh. Zane" Iasi- Branch of Romanian Academy, Romania. The author is a scholar within The Knowledge Based Society Poject, POSDRU ID 56815, Romania.

Received November 2010 Accepted January 2011 Final acceptance in revised form January 2011