Tourism accessibility and its impact on the spiritual sustainability of sacred sites

Abstract

Religious heritage sites are defined by their nature, both religious and non-religious (historical, social, cultural, etc.), as being pilgrimage destinations, as well as tourist attractions. The main aim of this paper is to determine whether there is a relationship between tourism accessibility and the concept of spiritual sustainability. Spiritual sustainability is presented in the paper by analyzing the concept of a sacred place and the connection it may have with tourism development. The authors have attempted to distinguish the elements determining the tourist and religious (spiritual) attractiveness of several pilgrimage sites as destinations for religious tourism, proposing a model for analyzing the connection between the two concepts studied. Two European regions have been compared—Pomerania (Poland) and Catalonia (Spain)—by analyzing 30 sacred sites (15 per region) using a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods. The results show that a lack of accessibility positively affects the spiritual sustainability of the sites. In other cases, the impact that accessibility can have depends on the management system.