The Emergence of African Religious Pilgrimages as a Local Economic Development Tool

• Autor(a) principal: Linda, Nompumelelo N
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.34624/rtd.v41i0.30870

The religious sector is another sector of tourism, and so this study aimed at establishing whether the pilgrimage destinations would be perceived as a socio-economic enhancer or contributor for the country. African religious pilgrimages can play an integral part of pilgrimage destinations of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). The African religious pilgrimages can contribute to tourism development and subsequently to the general local socio-economic development of KZN as there are various significant pilgrimages. The emergence of African religious pilgrimages can create opportunities for people and stakeholders in the tourism sector to understand that it can contribute to tourism development and subsequently to the general local economic development of KZN which has several important pilgrimages. The purpose of this paper is to explore the emergence of African religious pilgrimages as a local economic development tool. The paper uses both the theory and document analysis to look at this phenomenon. Moreover, the paper uses Local economic development (LED) and Tourism value chains (TVCs) theories in guiding the lensing and framing of the questions and objectives for this paper. The study adopted a mixed method research design; and applied a convenience sampling method of a non-probability sampling technique for primary data collection. IBM’s SPSS version 27 software and content analysis were used for data analysis. The findings showed that while African religious pilgrimages have the potential to make socio-economy contributions, it is not yet perceived in that manner by local stakeholders (including municipalities) and religious leaders. The findings further suggest that the African religious pilgrimages can be used as a tool for local economic development. The study recommends that stakeholders to enhance the socio-economic potential of religious pilgrimages such that they promote them as tourism and/or socio-economic development stimuli within the study areas and elsewhere in South Africa.