Religious tourism is one of the oldest bureaucracies planned and remains to this day a massive industry.
About three hundred to 330 million tourists make a stopover at the world’s main devout sites each year, according to a 2017 estimate. About six hundred million devoted domestic and foreign travels are made around the world, generating about $18 billion in global revenue. Es un componente vital de un sector turístico global que se ha visto afectado de manera componente por la propagación del coroanvirus, con un 63,8% de los lectores que han reducido sus planes en consecuencia.
As COVID-19 became a global pandemic, governments around the world closed sacred sites and temporarily banned travel.
It has affected popular destinations of all denominations. Jerusalem, Vatican City and Mecca, which attract millions of Jewish, Christian and Muslim visitors each year, are among the hardest hit.
Similarly, Buddhist sites such as Lumbini Temple in Nepal and Mahabodhi Temple in India, such as Kashi Vishwanath Hindu Temple, have noticed a decrease in the number of guests.
This has had huge monetary implications for host countries.
Last year, over 2.5 million Muslims around the world celebrated hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam, of which nearly 2 million arrived from outside Saudi Arabia.
However, this year, only about 10,000 more people had to make the pilgrimage while watching social estrangement measures.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia earns $12 billion a year with hajj and Omra, a small pilgrimage that can be made at any time of the year.
The pilgrimage is perceived as a way to diversify the economy from dependence on the oil sector. Devoted year-round visits contribute to 20% of the kingdom’s non-oil GDP and about 7% of total GDP.
The economy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is already recovering from low oil prices, which have led to a budget deficit. It is expected to fall by 6.8% by 2020.
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Saudi Arabia is solo. Jordan, which is home to 35 Islamic sites and shrines and 34 Christian holy sites, has closed its borders because of COVID-19. Tourism accounts for about 15% of the country’s GDP and maintains around 55,000 jobs.
Last year, more than a million travelers visited Wadi Musa, the Jordanian valley of Moses, a vital site where Moses would have produced water from a rock. Up to 80% of the region’s source of income depends on tourism.
Tourism revenues in Jordan fell 10.7% to $1.1 billion in the first quarter of 2020 as the pandemic spread.
It’s a story all over the Middle East.
In Iran, only 20,000 domestic tourists and 66 foreign tourists see Yazd, a UNESCO World Heritage Site dating from 224 A.D., between March and June 2020. It is a sacred position for fans of Islam, Judaism and Zoroastrianism. The number of tourists this year represents only 1% of last year’s figure.
In June, only 5,800 others visited Israel, a devout destination for Christians, Muslims and Jews, compared to 365,000 in the same month of 2019. The pandemic is expected to cause $1.16 billion in damage to the country’s tourism industry, according to the Israel Hotels Association.
For some of the main places of pilgrimage, the loss of the source of income has been devastating, and it is a shared delight around the world.
The Catholic Church of Our Lady of Lourdes in France receives up to five million visitors each year. But to stop the spread in France, the shrine closed, providing only virtual pilgrimages. This would have resulted in a $9.06 million deficit for the sanctuary.
Many make a pilgrimage to an entire travel, transport and accommodation industry, and all this has been affected.
For the industry as a whole, this unprecedented crisis has resulted in a $2.7 trillion drop in revenue and task loss of more than $100 million in 2020. The United Nations World Tourism Organization estimates that during the year, foreign arrivals will be minimized by about 850 million. . $1.1 billion, depending on when the borders are fully reopened.
And it’s not just the monetary blow. Uncertainty and anxiety related to COVID-19 and the intellectual and intellectual health of others. Many others interact in devout tourism for reasons of non-secular convenience or to pray for forgiveness or salvation.
For others, it is a way to demonstrate their determination to faith. In some religions, there is confidence that all healthy and economically capable people will take an adventure in their respective sacred places at least once in their lives. This is true, for example, for Muslims and participation in hajj.
As such, other people would probably have set aside their savings all their lives and planned that trip for years. Having to abandon these projects due to restrictions or the closure of devout sites can be distressing.
Government aid and grant programs, as well as comprehensive security and recovery measures, can restore visitor confidence and encourage travel.
But, as experts in the travel industry, we believe that due to ongoing travel restrictions and sinking travel confidence amid the pandemic, countries that rely heavily on tourism are likely to continue to face challenges. And uncertainty and the option of new waves of viruses can further damage the tourism industry, adding devoted journeys.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a non-profit news story committed to sharing concepts from education experts.
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The authors work, consult, own shares or obtain investments from any company or organization that could benefit from this article, and have disclosed any applicable association beyond their university appointment.