Development of a Post-Pandemic Socio-Cultural International Tourism Conceptual Model

Introduction

Religion, pilgrimages, technology, eco-tourism, environmental conservation and service quality are factors which have been studied in the past but the world has changed due to the coronavirus pandemic, climate change, and economic instability. In the future it is likely though that the international tourism industry will recover but it may be worth examining the potential size of this lucrative market. Even though the COVID-19 pandemic hindered international tourism, the numbers of travelers, and their contributions to destination economies, was steadily rising. It is reasonable to anticipate improved tourism once the pandemic is over, which will impact GDP.

Figure 1.

Personal, cultural, and or religious tourism (2019)

As further evidence of the socio-economic importance of this topic, there were at least 3,194,276,073 (3 trillion) arrivals across all member countries at the start of 2020, based on my analysis of data collected by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO, 2022). Although the data did not specifically break down the purpose, there was enough information to determine that 89% (2,835,419,413) of international travel was for personal motivation including religious, socio-cultural and or pilgrimages, while the remaining 11% (358,856,660) was for business purposes including work or journalism. These estimates were calculated using the international arrivals for a purpose, reported by 139 of the 223 United Nations (UN) member countries during 2019. Figure 1 depicts a comparison of international tourism arrivals for personal, religious and or cultural reasons across the top 10 visited UN member countries (based on data from UNWTO, 2022). The descending trend of international tourism in figure 1 makes sense when considering these top 10 visited countries have significant religious cultural heritage sites and or events. The point is, considering there were 2.8+ trillion tourists travelling globally per year for socio-cultural and or religious purposes, assuming an average weekend visit where $100 USD would be spent (as a simulation), the end result would be a $280 trillion USD contributing to the GDP of UN member countries. This represents a large socio-economic market impact, substantiating the importance of exploring the factors underlying socio-cultural tourism. Religious tourism is important to study because of the personal aspirations of those wanting to travel to significant cultural sites or events (Barlar, 2018; Bidan-Gekia et al., 2019; Cheng et al., 2018; Lopez et al., 2018), as well as the requirement of religious practitioners to participate in socio-cultural ceremonies including pilgrimages (Hawelmeier, 2020; Inglese, 2018; Leighton, 2018; Robina Ramirez & Pulido Fernandez, 2018b).

Another rationale pointing to the need for a new study to explore the socio-cultural tourism factors is not enough data was captured about religious or cultural tourism by national and international tourism agencies (Griffin & Raj, 2017). Furthermore, a scan of the peer reviewed literature returned only 34 of the 24,720 papers that focused on cultural and or religious tourism. Most of the 34 papers discussed administrative features at a specific socio-cultural religious site, rather than the visitor motivations. Site-specific examples included the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia (Caidi, 2019), the Queen of Peace Sanctuary in West-Herzegovina (Bidan-Gekia, Gekia & Åunia, 2019), the Camino de Santiago in Spain (Barlar, 2018), the Shrine of Santimissi Medici in Italy (Shinde & Rizello, 2014), and the Hindu god within the Ganesha Chaturthi festival in India (Faizan, 2020). Nevertheless, several plausible socio-cultural tourism concepts began to emerge from those papers, which if further analyzed and refined using actual data, they may be of interest to tourism stakeholders for product design or marketing.