Pilgrimages

This paper aims to address the relationship between Christian pilgrimages and tourism today. Through the definition of key concepts, narrative-historical reconstruction and bibliographical compilation, we analyze: the evolution of Christian pilgrimages throughout the different historical periods; the comparison of the two main currents on the relationship between current tourism and pilgrimages, sacred time and profane time; and the processes of patrimonialization, touristification, mercantilization and tourist appropriation in relation to religious cultural heritage and the territory that contains them. Next, different perspectives of religious tourism are briefly explained and the main destinations of this typology worldwide, of the Christian religion and in Argentina are listed. Finally, the positive and negative socio-cultural impacts of cultural and religious tourism as a tourist typology in which current pilgrimages are framed are analyzed.