Huang, Keji, Pearce, Philip, and Wen, Junjie (2017) Tourists' attitudes toward religious commercialization. Tourism Culture and Communication, 17 (4). pp. 259-270.

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Abstract

Commercial activities exist at different religious sites and the practices arouse global concern. This study identifies and assesses religious commercial activities and explores how they affect tourists' attitudes. The well-known Four Great Buddhist Mountains in China were selected as research sites. Using grounded theory, this study initially conducted 80 detailed interviews to build an understanding of commercialization and then investigated 438 travel blogs. The resulting seven commercial categories were: entrance ticket, food and drinks, accommodation, transportation, shopping, staff service, and entertainment. In addition, the level of different commercial categories for all research sites were assessed. The findings showed that tourists had more negative comments about food and drinks, accommodation, and staff service, with less criticism of transportation and entertainment. It implied that tourists were more likely to feel annoyed when tourism products have ambiguous or exaggerated prices and there is a lack of uniform service standards. The research findings offer insights for sustainable development of religious tourism aiming to benefit both local communities and tourists.

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