The Contribution of the Catholic Church in the Development of Religious Tourism and its Implementation into the Overall Tourist Offer

Abstract

Faith has always been an important part of human civilization and has greatly determined its ways and accomplishments. In terms of tourism, one of the oldest motifs for travel was precisely faith. The development of technology, especially transport, enabled a greater number of people to travel. The characteristics of pilgrimage and what accompanies pilgrimage has led to the development of a new phenomenon of economy called tourism. Despite the huge developments in technics, technology, science, as well as in the general progress of humanity that has fundamentally changed the way people live, the ancient religious motives for travel have remained for a large number of people and such travels have found their place in the complex mechanism of tourist migration, as a special interest of tourism called religious tourism. Croatia, as a country rich in historically and artistically extremely valuable religious objects and already well-visited shrines, and as a predominantly Christian country, has great potential for further development of religious tourism. However, due to a number of political-ideological and unscientific reasons there is no scientific and objective analysis of the development of religious tourism in Croatia. The subject of this paper is to show the attitude of the Catholic Church towards the religious tourism, and on the basis of some statistical indicators of pilgrims in Croatia to point to the value and wealth of resources of religious tourism in Croatia. In the end we will offer a new concept of dealing with religious tourism in Croatia through a concrete proposal for the development of religious tourism and its implementation in the overall tourist offer of Croatia in accordance with the principles of sustainable development, in which the Church should be given a greater role as a moderator of the development of religious offer.

Vjera je oduvijek bila važan segment ljudske civilizacije i uvelike je određivala njezine putove i dosege. U turističkom smislu, jedan od najstarijih motiva putovanja bila je upravo vjera. Razvoj tehnologije, pogotovo prometa, omogućilo je većem broju ljudi da putuje. Sama obilježja hodočašća i ono što prati hodočašće dovelo je do toga da se s vremenom formira nova pojava gospodarstva nazvana turizam. Unatoč golemom razvoju tehnike, tehnologije, znanosti, kao i općem napretku čovječanstva, koji je iz temelja promijenio način života ljudi, drevni vjerski motivi putovanja zadržali su se kod velikog broja ljudi i takva su putovanja našla svoje mjesto u složenom mehanizmu turističkih migracija, kao posebni interes turizma pod nazivom vjerski turizam. Hrvatska, kao zemlja koja obiluje povijesno i umjetnički izrazito vrijednim sakralnim objektima i već dobro posjećenim svetištima te kao pretežito kršćanska zemlja, ima velik potencijal za daljnje razvijanje vjerskoga turizma. Međutim iz niza političko-ideoloških i neznanstvenih razloga izostala je znanstvena i objektivna analiza razvoja vjerskoga turizma u Hrvatskoj. Predmet je istraživanja ovoga rada prikazati stav Katoličke crkve o vjerskom turizmu, te na osnovu nekih statističkih pokazatelja broja hodočasnika u Hrvatskoj ukazati na vrijednosti i bogatstvo resursa vjerskoga turizma u Hrvatskoj. Na će se kraju ponuditi jedna nova koncepcija odnosa prema vjerskom turizmu u nas, konkretnim prijedlogom razvoja vjerskoga turizma i njegove implementacije u sveukupnu turističku ponudu Hrvatske po principima održivog razvoja, a pri čemu bi se Crkvi trebala dati veća uloga moderatora razvoja vjerske ponude.