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ABSTRACT
Religious tourism in Italy has always been an attractor at an international level. For many centuries, it has been entirely represented by the Christian pilgrimage to St. Peter’s Basilica. In recent decades, however, the religious scenery has changed deeply, and now includes even non-Christian religions and spiritualities. In this paper we compare two (very different) Buddhist centers, both located in places of Italy where tourism is not (or is no more) a significant component of the local economy. Buddhist centers are increasingly becoming popular tourist attraction: our purpose is to investigate to what extent and under which conditions they can be actors of local tourism development. The most significant of these conditions seems to be the nature of the center itself, ranging from a hermitage relatively unconcerned about any quantitative development, to a structure where spiritual ends are reconciled both with expansion and with economic integration within the local community.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 They are from 41 to 47, according to the classification adopted. Half of them are located in Northern Italy, less than 10% in the South.
2 According to estimates of the Center for Studies of New Religions (CESNUR) (updated to November 2015), the Buddhist practitioners in Italy are currently about 240,000: 70,000 Italians, 100,000 Asian immigrants residents and over 70,000 members of the Sokka Gakai. CESNUR, www.Cesnur.org. (See also Garelli, Citation2014, p. 115 ss).
3 One could note that pilgrimage insists (even symbolically) on the idea of a journey. Obviously, the experience can be mixed (pilgrimage with stays, simple stays or simple pilgrimage).