Traveling to feel connected: origins and outcomes of potential faith-based tourists’ emotional solidarity

ABSTRACT

Focusing on potential faith-based tourists, this study investigated how their shared belief, shared behavior, and propensity to interact contributed to their emotional solidarity toward other tourists and how the feeling predicted their intention to travel. To reflect the dual identities of faith-based tourists, further distinctions were made between shared belief and shared behavior related to their trip and religion. Shared touristic belief, shared touristic behavior, and propensity to interact deviated in their influences on communality and fairness that constitute tourist-to-tourist emotional solidarity. Communality and fairness also showed different impacts on travel intention. Shared religious belief and shared religious behavior did not translate into communality or fairness, but they still predicted travel intention on their own.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotional solidarity
• emotional solidarity theory
• faith-based tourism
• interaction ritual theory
• religious tourism
• travel intention

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge that this study was not funded by any organization.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).