Demographic characteristics influencing religious tourism behaviour: evidence from a Central-Eastern-European country

Although religious tourism and pilgrimages have been widely studied there is very limited research that explores the peculiarities in attitude and behaviour among tourists with different demographic factors. The present exploratory study enhances the discussion on perceptions of religious tourism behaviour. Specifically, with eleven statements attitude and behaviour were explored among 345 Hungarians with different socio-demographic background. The results show that there are significant variations between senior and young travellers: seniors retain important the educational purposes and feelings of national identity related to sacred sites while these are less motivating for the young. The frequency of participating in religious tourism is also a determining factor: frequent travellers donate more and are more willing to purchase ‘sacred’ souvenirs. The findings provide inputs for developing a new scale to measure attitude and related behaviour in religious tourism. In more, practical implications of the research are relevant to managers of sacred sites because a better understanding of visitors’ behaviour would ease market segmentation and marketing to target groups.