Dear Colleagues,

Religious heritage is a major attraction in the tourism industry. It appears in various forms within the broader notion of either culture or heritage or cultural heritage. For several reasons, its specific origin in the domain of religion and religious practice has largely remained overshadowed due to other concerns. One contentious issue is the potential of tourism—mainly leisure orientation—secularizing and negatively influencing the sanctity of what is revered as religious. Governance issues also exist where most governments often sideline religious aspects in favor of their mandates of aspiring for secular development. Another issue is the high sensitivity around talking about religion in an open way that may lead to politicization and social polarization. It is well known that pilgrimage represents the most explicit interface between religious heritage and tourism, but the purpose of this Special Issue is to go beyond pilgrimage and highlight how religious heritage relates to tourism in multiple ways and multiple forms of complexities.  

This Special Issue aims to explore how various facets of religious heritage are promoted and managed as tourism products. Some of the topics for the contributions in this Special Issue are listed below. Contributors are welcome to expand on any of these or suggest others that align with the main theme:

• Articulating religious heritage through the lens of tourism;
• Tangible religious heritage of shrines, temples, churches, places of worship, and other religious infrastructure as attractions;
• Producers and consumers of religious heritage;
• Protecting and preserving intangible religious heritage through religious performances for tourism;
• Religious heritage and tourism to archeological sites in tour;
• Emerging forms of religious heritage attractions—religious museums, religious theme parks, etc.;
• Stakeholders in managing religious heritage for tourism: contestations and reconciliations; 
• Religious heritage: identity, representation, and revenues;  
• Shared religious heritages;  
• Ethical issues in promoting religious heritage for tourism—the sacred and the profane;
• Authenticity and staging in religious heritage.    

Dr. Kiran Shinde
Guest Editor

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