The interdependencies of religious tourists’ attributes and tourist satisfaction in the light of contemporary socio-cultural changes

Abstract

The social-cultural changes in the 20th and 21st centuries and changes in religiousness have significantly caused the development of pilgrimage centres and ways of travel. The attributes of religious tourists are becoming increasingly complex and diverse, which may also influence the development of other travel forms and economic benefits, and also create challenges for the management of pilgrimage centres. However, interdependencies of motivation, perception of place, experiences and tourist satisfaction have not been studied so far. This article presents the results of surveys (n = 1545) carried out in six popular pilgrimage centres in Poland. The presented analysis of the interdependencies of visitors’ attributes and proposed conceptual models: (a) the conditions of religious tourism, and (b) paths of religious tourists’ attributes solely provide an opportunity to understand the complexity and multifacetedness of religious tourism in the changing world and to determine its development directions and destinations.