Can biblical archaeological sites be regarded as destinations for the “new tourist”?

Abstract

The starting point for this research is an exploration of who and what the “New Tourist” is. Traditional “Old Tourism” is usually associated with massed packaged holidays, typically described with the four S’s – Sun,Sea, Sand and Sex. The concept of the “New Tourist” was first advanced by Aurelia Poon in her book Tourism, technology and competitive strategies (1993). Poon is a leading commentator on future trends in tourism and she advocated that in future tourism would be flexible, segmented, environmentally sound and diagonally integrated rather than mass, rigid, standardised and packaged. In addition, a number of authors and researchers have noted the apparent interest among tourists for educational holidays. Examples include special interest holidays, ecotourism and cultural heritage tourism. Paradoxically, the decline in traditional churchgoing in Europe in recent years has been paralleled by, in many cases, a growing interest in religion and religious travel, as people are searching for meaning in their increasingly uncertain lives. Many people have not been able to find this through traditional forms of worship, so they are now taking to different methods in order to experience it. This includes the rediscovery of pilgrimage or journeys to so-called sacred places. Therefore the research question is whether biblical archaeological sites can be regarded as destinations for the “New Tourist”, and in future it will be expanded into how we bring these two fields of study together in order to use the opportunity for biblical archaeological tourism that has been identified but not yet been explored.