In this article, we calculate the economic impact of pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in the NUTS 2 region Galicia (Spain) in 2010. This economic impact is relevant to policymakers and other stakeholders dealing with religious tourism in Galicia. The analysis is based on the Input-Output model. Location Quotient formulas are used to derive the regional Input-Output table from the national Input-Output table of Spain. Both the Simple Location Quotient formula and Flegg's Location Quotient formula are applied. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis is carried out. We found that pilgrimage expenditures in 2010 created between 59.750 million and 99.575 million in Gross Value Added and between 1, 362 and 2, 162 jobs. Most of the impact is generated within the 'Retail and Travel Services' industry, but also the 'Industry and Manufacturing', 'Services' and 'Financial and Real Estate Services' industries benefit from pilgrimage expenditures. This research indicates that in even in the most conservative scenario, the impact of pilgrimage is significant on the local economy of Galicia.
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Traveling to places associated with death is not a new phenomenon. People have long been drawn, purposefully or otherwise, towards sites, attractions, and events linked in one way or another with death, suffering, violence, or disaster. War-related attractions, though diverse, are a subset of the totality of tourist sites associated with death and suffering. This article aims to assess how "dark" tourism may play a role in leveraging tourism in Palestine, which has largely relied on pilgrimage tourism in the past. This article investigates the potential for developing this form of tourism, since Palestine has been undergoing death, suffering, violence, or disaster through political tension and instability since 1948 and arguably for a generation earlier, but has not yet developed a strategy for tourism development that considers this type of tourism.
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This paper proposes that tourism research needs to explore the potentially lasting psychological benefits of tourism by implementing a eudaimonic perspective of well-being. Consequently, this study adopted a eudaimonic approach to tourist well-being by investigating the reported psychological well-being of pilgrims and the concepts involved in the pilgrimage experience via the exploration of 74 personal narratives. Pilgrims’ self-transcendent peak experiences encompassed spiritual moments of revelation, healing and epiphany. These experiences led to spiritual growth that seems to have impacted participants’ religious spirituality, also long after their pilgrimage, which can be perceived as a potential long-term effect of the pilgrimage experience. The self-transcendent peak experience of the pilgrims can be explained via enhanced autonomy, the experience of positive relationships, achieved personal growth, a sense of purpose in and of life, their character development and a state of self-acceptance.
