Heritage Sites, Devotion, and Quality Enhancement in Tourism
The Promotion and Management of Ancient Marian Places of Worship along the Appian Way in Puglia and Basilicata
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3277849 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Luigi Oliva (0009-0005-8460-8500, Ministero della cultura, corresponding author), Giuseppe Egidio De Benedetto (0000-0002-0832-5470), Anna Trono (0000-0002-9734-0938, University of Salento) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue | 12 |
| Pages | 1548 |
| Publication date | 2023-12-18 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Religions (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444 |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/rel14121548 |
| OpenAlex | W4389912333 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 5 |
Religious tourism is a significant and growing field of tourism that overlaps with cultural tourism. It has the potential to improve the quality of life of those who live in places of faith or along routes of spiritual interest. Religious tourism involves a complex interplay of spiritual and economic motivations. Effective religious tourism management requires respect for spiritual values, partnerships, local engagement, and quality assessment. Devotional practices have evolved from medieval spiritual care to communal expressions and periodic rituals. This paper specifically analysed the characteristics of the Marian cult and pilgrimage flows to places of Marian faith. It examined their value potential from a religious and cultural perspective and their role as a particular attractor of experiential and quality tourism generated by the territorial context. The area of reference is the region of Puglia, which has often played the role of cultural bridge with the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean in the past. The second part of the paper focuses on the proposed itinerary along the Appian Way in its final route between Puglia and Basilicata. Marian shrines were sometimes the cause and sometimes the evidence of the cultural and economic poles that characterised the medieval and modern variants of this ancient road route. The study outlines a serial path that integrates the usual settlement or infrastructural levels of territorial knowledge with the Marian theme, which was analysed diachronically. An operational track in the contemporary territorial dimension emerged from the correlation of both the stratigraphic reading of the landscape and the interpretation of material and immaterial cultural heritage. This track aims to aggregate and promote the sustainable rediscovery of those places, which are largely cut off from the routes of mass tourism, in adherence to the most recent European and local cultural and landscape guidelines
Ancient history · Archaeology · Cult · Cultural tourism · Environmental ethics · Faith · Geography · Pilgrimage · Political science · Religious Tourism · Sociology · Theology · Tourism · Tourism geography · Worship · Culinary Culture and Tourism · Diverse Aspects of Tourism Research · History · Law · Philosophy · Religious Tourism and Spaces
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,5 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2026 (3) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |