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Department of Ethnography, Faculty of Humanities, University of Debrecen , Debrecen , Hungary
Religious tourism has been a dynamically growing social and economic phenomenon in our world for the past fifty years. Its roots can be traced back to thousands of years in a variety of religions. Nowadays, the number of religiously motivated trips worldwide is estimated to be at hundreds of millions every year. However, several times that number is accounted for by the amount of sacred destinations and similar program elements in other tour packages. All of the features described above constitute a spectacular element of the life of faith and religiosity. Its economic significance is continuously increasing, and the individual churches are recognizing this while seeking to satisfy the practical needs of religious tourism. In Hungary, Christian pilgrimages go back a thousand years and, by today, the Protestant churches as well as the Jewish community have established the infrastructure for sacred travel purposes alongside those available in the Catholic and Orthodox churches. Courses on religious tourism are offered at several universities in Hungary either as a stand-alone major or as part of various programs. This presentation intends to provide an analytical overview of the practice of this growing tourism sector in Hungary and its emergence in higher education.
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