Implications Of Commercial Activity Within Monastic Settlements As A Way To Maintain The Sustainable Development Of Religious Tourism In Romania

For hundreds years, people have been travelling to places deemed as sacred to meet or to worship Divinity. However, these travels with religious motivation or pilgrimages, which might be considered as the first form of tourism (Rinschede, 1992), were carried out without the possibility to measure the economic, social and environmental impact. Religion-motivated tourism is extremely important in many parts of the world (Timothy and Olsen, 2006). In Romania, religious ceremonies to celebrate Saints’ days as well as all the related places and relics represent places for prayer and meeting with God for millions of people. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the contributions which an increased number of visitors might have on religious settlements and the pertaining communities of Romania in the light of compliance with sustainable development principles and to identify the role that commercial activity plays within religious settlements and the way it affects the environment where it operates, from the point of view of people representing the religious tourist supply. In this respect, we carried out a questionnaire-based survey among the main monastic complexes indicating religious tourism potential and its commercial side to bring about benefits for the monastery and the community, the preservation and the accomplishment of the religious settlement’s spiritual mission.