The Aim Of Visiting Religious Sites And Being A Tourist'

Learning is a strong reason why people love to travel. They want to experience unfamiliar and leave with new skills or knowledge. The world regularly blames religion for the unfortunate troubles between a number of different cultures and the activities of radical religious factions. However, religion has still retained a significant place within the global political environment over the last 100 years despite emerging secularism and related functions, which pervade cultures and traditions.

The study of religion encompasses a diverse range of academic disciplines, which traditionally have attracted the attention of historians, orientalists, classicists, linguists, art historians and philosophers.

Moreover, the study of religion is combined with other emerging academic disciplines to express new insights into its significance within the contemporary socio-cultural.

Sociological discourse includes functionalist perspectives applied to studying the science of religion, with a sense that this functionality creates societal solidarity. They’ll also gain awareness of new customs, cultures, people and places. Every destination has something unique to teach visitors and immersing themselves in a completely different world is the best learning experience.

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Motivation also is a main factor to travel the religious and sacred sites. The faithful gain a number of benefits from visiting religious and sacred sites, the main ones being to gain individual purification and pleasure. It is a fundamental belief that the individual must develop personal supplication and glorification of God, these are a very important part of human being worship and visiting religious sites.

From a Muslim point of view, a visitor travels to pilgrimage sites to find love and pleasure.

Therefore, it is important for a Muslim to bear in mind when visiting Madinah that pilgrims should show a great respect, being aware that the PBUH precious steps have trodden every place around Madinah.

Thus, the religious ought to walk with dignity and caution, recalling the Messenger’s humility and graceful gait. This religious is a unique spiritual experience, which brings together an immense diversity of human beings from every part of the world. Participants are from vastly differing cultures and languages, yet they form one community and practise the same faith and all are devoted to the worship of their single creator.

hermore, the deployment of knowledge is also one of the factors that motivated people to go to travel to religious and sacred sites, it involves the journey of an individual out of the residence for a certain period of time for a religious or spiritual purpose. This deployment of knowledge can be replicated when a person migrates to sacred sites to appreciate spiritual development by visiting or meeting with religious scholars, attending religious festivals, seminars and other religious matters.

In addition, a person may also conduct their deployment of knowledge by staying at a sacred site for a specific period of time to meet the community there to share their knowledge. They can share and remember each other on religious matters. After a certain period of time, they will move and move to other sacred sites to continue the dissemination of knowledge for personal and community development and the surrounding community. Thus, they can gain more knowledge and use it for useful purposes. They can share their experience or knowledge.

Relaxation can also be categorized as factors that motivate people to travel to religious and sacred sites. As we know, the sacred sites have always been a place of peace. When someone is in trouble, that at this place they must find. Each sacred site has its own special privileges. By the way, the people who go to these places can experience a great deal of tranquility. Most of them can also relax their mind.

For Muslims, one of their main sacred sites is the Al-Haram Mosque, which is in Mecca. It is a place of worship and pilgrimage which is the largest mosque in the world. This mosque has a different atmosphere than other mosques because of its uniqueness. While for sacred sites of Buddhists such as Bodh Gaya where the Buddha enlightened, Sarnath was the place where the Buddha first gave his teaching. Next, Lumbini is the birthplace of the Buddha and finally Kunshinara is where the Buddha died.

The building al-Aqsa is a Holy site in Jerusalem's old city. Jerusalem is one of the oldest towns in which mankind remains. Al-aqsa is a Muslim historic building that was renovated during the reign of Umar bin Khattab who was Rashiddun caliph in that moment (Rabbat, 1989). Caliph Umar bin Khattab was a friend of Rasulullah ﷺ. Rasulullah ﷺ Is the last Islamic prophet who was told to inform people about the way of blessing, the direction of Allah ﷻ. (Adil, 2012). In fact, the Al-aqsa building complex has existed since the reign of the prophet Sulaiman Alayhi Salam, or the Jew called him Solomon. The Al-aqsa complex had changed hands from one kingdom to another, starting from the kingdom of Solomon, the Persian Empire, the Roman Empire, the Caliphate, the Ottoman Empire Until the British Empire retains it according to Malamat (1958), Potts (2005), Hunt (1997), Rabbat (1989) and Jacobson (2011) respectively.

It is said that Jerusalem (especially the Al-aqsa area) is one of the most contentious regions in the world. This is quite reasonable given the historic position of three celestial religions including Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Massive struggles often occur both in diplomacy and war. Warfare between the three religions in fighting over this holy place had begun in the 10th century AD. The struggle still continues today. The Al-aqsa region once was held by Muslims in a Palestinian state. Christians and Jews have been given freedom by Muslims in Palestine to perform their worship in the Al-aqsa complex, but some of the Jews insisted on controlling the entire Al-aqsa complex. They consider the Jerusalem land as their promised land (Goldman, 2009). Gradually, some Jewish extremists began to take over the Jerusalem area and tightened guard in the region.

Although Jerusalem is a conflict zone, the complex of Al-Aqsa is actually one of the world's most popular religious sites. According to Cohen (2018) Which approximately 3,5 million tourists to Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa complex are seen every year from all three faiths.

There are non-religious factors that influence the traveler to visit religious and sacred sites such as personal interest in architecture or historic art work. There are tourists who come to religious sacred sites to see the beautiful and interesting architecture found in the building and the place. For example, the Blue Mosque or Sultanahamet camii has known as the jewel of Istanbul located in Turkey, which is one of the great buildings with very interesting architectural values and with building features using expertise in architecture what makes this mosque so beautiful. So, tourists will be amazed to see for themselves the architectural beauty that made them come to the place.

In addition, tourists will also be interested in exploring the legends and the interesting stories about the sacres site. Each religious and sacred site has its own legend and history that makes this place more interesting. The history and legends of the place are an attraction for tourists to visit the place to know more for themselves.Such as,the Aya Sofya mosque located in Turkey that rich in history behind the construction and history of the mosque itself. The mosque was originally a church and was converted to a mosque after the Islamic government took control of Turkey 1453 at that time and eventually the mosque was made a museum by the Turkish president Ataturk in 1953. Travelers will be interested in studying and discovering in more detail the history that behind the story about the place.History like this is one of the non-religious tourist attraction to visited the religious and sacred site.

Other non-religious factor that influence tourist to visited the religious and sacred site is to find the natural beauty and cultural beauty that have at the place.natural beauty. there is a religious and sacred site built in beautiful natural environment that can attract tourists to visit the area. In addition, tourists will also be interested in the cultural practices of the people who use the sacred site to adapt their lives.Po Lin Monestery and Tian Tan Buddha that located in Hong Kong It is estimated to receive more than 3 million tourists every year. The Statue of Buddha base, located on a hill with beautiful views, is able to attract tourists to see the cultural value of people who follow the Buddhism.

In today’s secular world, the religious and spiritual tourism in the travel industry has become the major part in influencing individuals visiting religious sites. The visiting patterns is actually depends on the strength of their religious belief. Not only that, along a rich cultural and natural history has helped to make the country leading tourist region. For example, an extraordinary tapestry of art forms, heritage sites and spiritual festivals are living legacies of Europe’s magnificient, diverse and longstanding cultures. These legacies inspired over six hundred million travellers from around the world to visit Europe in 2015 which has become one of the leading sectors of the European economy. And at a time when Europe’s economic recovery is still quite slow, international tourism in 2015 brought in around 406 billion euros in exports to its destinations. Our long-term forecast indicates that Europe will become 744 million international visitors in 2030.

However, the future prospect of religious and spiritual tourism should be made to make sure the tourist of religious and spiritual tourism will sustain in the travel industry. First and foremost, the communities among the youth should expose their own country to the other people especially among their fellow friends from different type of religious and country. This is because, the youth have many creative idea, innovative and good in technology (IT) to make a move towards tourism and travel industry. They can promote the special things about their religious and spiritual tourism country to the people. According to the Razaq Raj journal, on a global level the Hajj and the holy places in Saudi Arabia have a sacred quality in the world of Islam and with the act of pilgrimage, they are essentially providing a defining moment in the life of pilgrims. One of the reasons why a muslims goes on pilgrimage is to pray in the holist mosques in Makkah, Madinah and Jerusalem. To make it clear, the prospect of religious and spiritual tourism in the travel industry should have something special about the place to inform the people for visiting.

Then, the government should take part in making sustainability the future prospect of religious and spiritual tourism in the travel industry. The government should give a hand and support for the travel agencies industry on promoting the religious and spiritual tourism to the world. For example, the government should give initiative to the travelling agencies to make campaign, booth and talks about the religious and spiritual tourism among the people. The aim of this activities is because to relies the people on how the religious and spiritual tourism in the travel industry performance. Not only that, the government should give free advertise for the travel agencies industry to promote the things. By doing so, the travel industry can make unlimited advertisement through TV and radio channels and the world can get in touch through it.