Spiritual tourism has a bright future in Asia

25 Nov 2013  2054 | World Travel News

NINH BINH - How to define today spiritual tourism? Is it mostly related by religious motivation? Or is it through an inner spiritual journey? The definition looks indeed so large and embraces many values that many leaders certainly would like to see applied when looking at the development of tourism. “This is all about sustainable tourism as we face major challenges such as global warming. Spirituality and ethics are seen as a solution in realizing sustainable tourism. And it helps at the same time to teach tolerance to the human mankind”, highlighted in his keynote I. Gede Ardika, former Minister of Tourism in Indonesia, University Professor and member of the World Tourism Committee on Tourism Ethics.

“Spiritual tourism is not only pilgrimage, religious activities, but it is also a momentum to enhance exchange and socio-economic development. It contributes to heritage tourism, to protect religion and promote beautiful places. And we are in Vietnam totally committed to this approach as we look at promoting magnificent landscapes, prestigious values of our traditions, our unique culture and our typical architecture”, described Vietnam Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Ho Anh Tua.

Vietnam’s welcome of the UNWTO sponsored conference was in fact a historical event, indicated some observers. “It shows a real consciousness that spiritual tourism is a true enhancement to tourism development. This is a positive mindset as it shows that Asian developing nations are now conscious that tourism is not just only about infrastructure tourism and quick money”, observed a participant.

However, protecting and managing spiritual tourism assets are probably the most acute challenge faced by countries. How to create a balance between a natural desire from tourists to discover religious or spiritual sites –often also wonderful architectural monuments- and in parallel preserving the true essence of these places for motivated pilgrim travellers? Mecca for example adopted the most radical approach by banning non-Muslim travellers to visit the holy site. “But This also hangs to infrastructures’ capability of handling large crowds of pilgrims. And Mecca is suffering already under the enormous pressure of pilgrimage travellers. I think that some sites should then not be opened to travellers without spiritual motivation”, indicated Imtiaz Muqbil, a Thailand based journalist and Executive Director of a tourism publication.  

Could it be conceivable to then ban or restrict sites to non-believers? For example, should Borobudur or Angkor Wat only kept open for Buddhists or Varanasi (formely Benares) for Hindus? In Bali, some temples already restrict the access to Hindu temples to only locals…

Such a move would probably contradict the idea of including heritage or culture as part of a spiritual experience for travellers. “Culture and heritage are to my opinion very much a part of this inner journey for the traveller. Such as visiting artist communities who express their feeling and convey a message through their art”, defended Amitrava Bhattacharya, Founder and Director of Banglanatak.com in India.

“Managing properly spiritual sites is certainly the key to the success of the spirituality-led destination. They are of course holy sacred sites that have a peculiar value for locals. But few sites are totally restricted to foreign travellers. A compromise is to keep part of a site just restricted to believers or spiritual-motivated visitors. This is often the case in many spiritual sites”, described Daniel Olsen, Associate Professor, Department of Geography, Brandon University in Canada.

Meanwhile, some sites are turning their spiritual credential into a highly commercial one. Foreign visitors to some Indian temples have inundated websites such as tripadvisor by telling about their negative experience and their feeling of being “ripped off”. Similar experiences exist of course in other countries…

By opening sites to any seriously motivated tourist certainly helps to bridge potential incomprehension which can exist between different cultures. Spiritual tourism at the end is finally all about learning and cherishing human cultural diversity. Something that all religions, philosophies or spiritual movements generally describe as tolerance…

Sourced: TravelDailyNews

Recommended Cambodia Tours

Cambodia Day Tours

Cambodia Day Tours

Angkor Temple Tours

Angkor Temple Tours

Cambodia Classic Tours

Cambodia Classic Tours

Promotion Tours

Promotion Tours

Adventure Tours

Adventure Tours

Cycling Tours

Cycling Tours