In Praise of Luxury - Destinations of the World News

In Praise of Luxury - Destinations of the World News
April 2008
by Leah Larkin
Website link: In praise of luxury

“There’s been an absolute shift from budget class mentality to first class when it comes to spiritual holidays,” says Kevin Wright, founder and president of the World Religious Travel Association. The majority of religious travellers request first-class hotels for “security, comfort and health reasons.”

Bob Whitley, president of the United States Tour Operators Association, says: “Americans like comfort. They are demanding more luxury. They are more sophisticated.”Marzia Bortolin with the Italian Government Tourist Board adds that in Italy five-star hotels are doing big business. “Many monasteries have been turned into luxurious places to stay,” she says.

Dr Riaz Akhtar, meanwhile, a Chicago heart specialist, leads several groups of 200 to 250 for Hajj and Umrah pilgrimages to Saudi Arabia every year. They always stay in five-star hotels.

The most notable example of high-end faith travel is a US$45,000 around-the-world tour called Great Faiths operated by TCS Expeditions. Tourists take in religious sites around the world, hopping around in private jets and staying at the world’s finest hotels, from the King David in Jerusalem to the Oberoi in Delhi.

Religious cruises where comfort and luxury are important are also becoming more popular. “Religious cruises have been increasing in the past three to four years,” says Jack Anderson, vice president of marketing for the Carnival Corporation whose ships include those of Holland America, Costa Cruises, Cunard, Princess and Seabourn Cruise Lines. He said the company works with travel agencies specialising in religious travel and encourages them to send groups on board. “We get hundreds of religious groups per year. We go everywhere, Alaska, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean.”

In some cases, an entire ship is chartered for a religious cruise. “We are seeing off-the-chart interest in full chartered ship cruises with Christian music artists, speakers and comedians during which the bars and casinos are closed,” says Honnie Korngold, founder of the California-based Christian Travel. A big hit is Cruise with a Cause – a Christian cruise to the Bahamas with Royal Caribbean featuring Christian pop stars and opportunities to do mission work on shore.

As faith based travel has evolved, spiritual healing is often accompanied with physical healing. Religious trips incorporate hiking, skiing, kayaking, and other activities. Windfall Outdoor Center in Maine organises a white-water rafting excursion that includes lunch and devotionals around a campfire. Good old fashioned fun can also be part of a trip, such as touring the missions of California with a stop for a wine reception.

Nathan Ward is jumping on the religious market bandwagon with his new company, Ice Mountain Adventures, which will include pilgrimages. “Religious tours are a way to explore our inner selves and those of the people we meet,” he says. First on the agenda is a Buddhist cultural tour to Bhutan. “Anyone interested in learning basic Buddhist philosophy should visit some of the monasteries as well as participate in rituals of religion,” he says.

Yet the bread and butter of the spiritual travel market continues to be the Holy Land and Rome. Israel reported 2.3 million arrivals in 2007, a 25 per cent increase over the previous year. Gail Barzilay of the tourist office in New York, says the country’s US$11 million publicity campaign had played a major role in boosting numbers. To handle increasing demand Delta inaugurated daily flights from Atlanta and New York to Tel Aviv.

In 2006, religious tourists generated US$2.72 billion in revenue for Italy, says Marzia Bortolin of the country’s tourist board. Italy has 30,000 basilicas, 700 religious museums and 220 monasteries, sanctuaries and convents. The most popular sites are Rome, Assisi and the shrine of Padre Pio in San Giovanni Rotondo. The latter is the second-most visited Catholic shrine in the world after Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City. The shrine focuses on the tomb of Saint Padre Pio, a Capuchin friar known for his devotion to God and the stigmata. He died in 1968 and was declared a saint in 2002. Seven million pilgrims visit the site annually. Since Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ pilgrimages to Matera in southern Italy where the movie was filmed have also been on the upswing, Bortolin says.

Other European shrines attracting great numbers are Fatima and Lourdes. Franck Delahaye, director of communications at Lourdes, said the site had six million visitors in 2007, but eight million are expected this year, the 150th anniversary of the apparitions of the Virgin that are said to have taken place at the site. With 200 hotels, he says: “Lourdes is the second city for hotels in France after Paris.” Visitors are not all Catholics, he says.

Overnight stays at Fatima in Portugal, a site where the Virgin appeared to three shepherds, grew from 363,296 in 2002 to 432,362 in 2006. That same year, 3.5 million masses were held in the sanctuary. “Its fame has spread, especially during the papacy of John Paul II who was a devout worshipper of Our Lady of Fatima,” says Miguel Carvalho of the National Tourism Office.

Medjugorje has been drawing greater numbers, now said to near a million per year. The Medjugorje Web, a US site with a travel department that conducts trips to the site in Bosnia and Herzegovina, lists 13 pilgrimages on its schedule this year.