How Religious Tourism and Pilgrimages can be Beneficial to Communities

This paper highlights the distinction between tourism as a socio-economic industry and tourism as a socio-cultural activity. The defining feature of sustainable , culturally supportive and beneficial tourism is community engagement. This paper proposes that the traditional aspects of hospitality, service and experience can be fully manifest if there is an engagement with local communities, which is thus manifest in immersion by the visitor in the activities around which events are based. This can only occur when development adopts a Community Based Tourism model. If locations such as Malta wish to develop religious tourism to the benefit of all, this must maximise the adherence to socially responsible stakeholder engagement in a sustainable manner.