Malta’s potential in religious tourism to be studied
Religious tourism is showing a substantial growth, and many are the destinations chosen by pilgrims of different religions for their travels abroad.
The Malta Tourism Authority is taking the initiative and urging collaboration between religious and cultural authorities and interested parties in the tourist sector, in order to create a common campaign with the aim of attracting more pilgrims to Malta.
Malta offers over 590 places of worship, but few open their doors for visitors throughout the day in a structured manner. All this availability, together with more access and progress can lead to tourism based on faith, which is resistant to economic and financial crises which effect the international scene, and offers a fairly stable situation in the tourist sector.
For this reason a conference is being organised at the end of this week for different exponents to look into opportunities in this specialised market. The conference will be held at Qawra between Thursday and Saturday, and is being organised by the MTA, the University of Malta, the Dublin Institute for Technology and Leeds Beckett University.
The initiative for the conference came from Dr Dane Munro, who researches and studies faith-related tourism at the Institute for Tourism, Travel and Culture (ITTC) within the University of Malta. And at the same time the MTA, through the efforts of Deputy Chief Executive Leslie Vella, is committed to developing a specialised market with a more prominent position in the Malta tourist product.
The aims of the conference are twofold. The first day will see a presentation of position papers aimed at stakeholders in the tourist sector, the Church, and those connected with tourist sites. The following two days will see academics discussing ways on how their research on tourism and the faith can take on a global perspective and at the same time include a specific reference to the reality of Malta.
Additional information is obtainable from shirley.b.cassar@visitmalta.com or by telephoning on 2291 5203.
This is www.tvm.com.mt opinion piece
Ref: https://www.tvm.com.mt/en/news/maltas-potential-in-religious-tourism-to-be-studied/