Conference
Religious tourism is one of the oldest forms of tourism migration for which there is great interest today from both religious authorities and tourism professionals. Since the principal motivation behind all religious-related events is for the attendees to connect spiritually with divinity and with each other on a personal level, growth has occurred because this motivation is now more important than it has ever been. It is obvious that even if the places remained the same, the pilgrimage of today changed and economical, geographical and sociological conditions are different from the past.
Topics
The conference covered both the demand and supply perspective of religious tourism. Conference objectives focused on:
- Stressing the importance of religious tourism as a special form of tourism
- Promoting synergies among authorities and agents promoting religious tourism
- Presenting Best Practices in product organization and promotion of religious tourism
- Signifying the new trends in religious tourism development
- Elaborating the fact that religious tourism remain a focal point of international tourism
- Indicating the need for respecting and protecting places of worship
- Better understand the challenges and potential of religious tourism
- Network and exchange views among various stakeholders, practitioners and decision makers in religious tourism development and management
Conference participants were members of the industry servicing the sector worldwide and especially in Europe and the Mediterranean region, such as National Tourism Authorities, Travel Agents, Destination Management Companies (DMCs), industry analysts, academics and religious authorities.
Comments by ICORET 2006 Participants
"For the amount of information provided, we needed two days more"
Pascal Anthony
"It would be helpful to involve youngsters (NGO's or students, researchers); more case studies, more countries"
Sorina Capp
"Congratulations to the CTO Team - great job!"
Maja Lijesevic
"This was an all-round excellent conference - extremely good literature, charming CTO hospitality..."