How religious pilgrimages support a multi-billion dollar industry

[cbayer]

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/24/14065120-how-religious-pilgrimages-support-a-multi-billion-dollar-industry?lite



By 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; it’s 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.”

more at link

[aquart]

2. As do Christmas and Easter.

[dimbear]

3. European pilgrims noted that Rome was rich, splendid, and lightly defended.

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]

4. One of the the largest annual pilgrimages of all is to Mecca.

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]

5. Then, there was this pilgrimage in India, the largest ever on this planet,

when 70 million Hindu pilgrims came to Allahabad in India in 2007 for the Ardh Kumbh Mela, the world’s largest religious festival and also the world’s 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