The dark side of pilgrimage and religious tourism: conflict, contestations and fallouts

This chapter argues that religious tourism, despite being driven by religious and spiritual motivations, also has a dark side that is often overlooked in the literature on religious tourism and is not discussed freely and openly. While examining reasons for the limited attention to such important aspects in scholarship, this chapter explains how this manifests in the form of conflicts, contestations and fallouts. It discusses the negative influences related to pilgrimage and religious tourism within three broad domains: local economies, natural and human-built environments and sociocultural fabrics, and at the local scale, where such influences on locals and visitors are the most intense. Contestations and conflicts are mainly due to unequal distribution of economic opportunities as religious actors, owing to hegemonic positions and religious capital, derive more benefits than nonreligious actors, who have limited capacity to deal with the impacts of tourism experienced through increased prices, pollution and environmental degradation. Inequality is also seen amongst stakeholders regarding governance and responsibilities for sustaining tourism while managing impacts.