Cultural, religious and spiritual tourism attractiveness among youngsters

Hampu, D.-N. & Coroș, M.-M. (2022). Cultural, religious and spiritual tourism attractiveness among youngsters. CACTUS Tourism Journal, 26 (1). doi.org/10.24818/CTS/4/2022/2.06

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Abstract

Being one of the first forms of tourism, cultural tourism has experienced several expansion and contraction phases over the years. In recent years, other subcategories of cultural tourism have increased greatly, such as spiritual tourism. If there is a trend, there are young people interested in 'newness', but to become a profitable trend, it must be promoted accordingly to the target market. In determining their desires and expectations, it turns out that young people between the ages of 18 and 35 are not only interested in spiritual tourism, but also in religious destinations when they are also busy with other activities. They associate religious tourism primarily with prayer or holy places, which some young people do not practice at all, but associate spiritual tourism with meditation or self-knowledge. While young people indicated that religious tourism could also be an attraction when combined with a good marketing strategy, most of them cannot recall seeing any marketing efforts in this regard. A good marketing strategy put in place after properly identifying the key objectives, desires, and expectations of the target market could open up great opportunities for businesses in this area.

Keywords

youngsters, religion, spirituality, pilgrimage, tourism development

JEL Classification

L83, Z32

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