Religious tourism and heritage

Since the end of World War II, the tourism industry has transformed both by the explosion of clients (Bauer, 1993), and destinations through the development of new niches, including thematic niches. Among them, religious tourism - setting market systematized secular pilgrimages - is a selected clientele drawn in "holy places" under the practices of the religious tradition to which it adheres. This tourism is based primarily on a memory devotion - for example by moving the burial of a saint, the birthplace of the Prophet, the place of birth of a religious tradition or the appearance of a legendary figure - but conceptually dock to the site or to the object that is only the case of devotion, which is why such seats / objects sanctified events are regularly replaced by new sets, more suited to the celebration religious tourism marketing (the Basilica of the Nativity, the mosque of Mecca, for example). In contrast, the religious heritage tourism development builds on monuments, that is to say, precisely on objects (sites, groups of buildings, works of art, etc.) rather interest under values cultural expanded; in most cases, the "heritage" is precisely befallen during the decommissioning of a religious function that has somehow sublimated. Moreover, heritage artefacts are polysemous definition; it is not clear that the Christian ministry finds the best communication tools or devotion, hence the danger of selection, replacement or setting aside, as the fact of religious tourism and as has been the case several times in the history of the Church (Iconoclasm, Ambonoclasme, destruction of monuments).

Finally, the mismatch between message and clientele, probably partly due to a lack of understanding of the spirit of the time, has already condemned several churches in Christian tradition to disappear (with or without their property). How these churches they could be effective in tourism marketing, especially as their ideal undermines regional peculiarities which are feasting tourists in a globalized world?