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The purpose of this mini-review is to evaluate the research of Mohammad Ibrahim Al zoubi and Yahaya Ibrahim of ‘Tourists or Pilgrims: Classification of the Visitors at the Baptism Site of Jesus Christ in Jordan’. In the study, the authors analyze the reasons and motivations driving Jordanians Christian visitors to visit the baptism site and examined the potential outcomes of the classification of the visitors at the holy site. The researchers used the quantitative method in the study by handed out 120 questionnaires among Jordanians Christians visitors. Accordingly, the researchers have classified the visitors into five groups: Religious journeys (pilgrims), cultural pilgrimage tourists, historical pilgrimage tourists, secular tourists and educational tourism.
Keywords: Jordan, Religious tourism, Baptism, Religious pilgrimage.
This mini-review intends to evaluate the research
entitled ‘Tourists or Pilgrims: Classification of the Visitors at the Baptism
Site of Jesus Christ in Jordan’ written by Mohammad Ibrahim Al zoubi and Yahaya
Ibrahim and published in International Review of Management and Marketing
journal. The study began with discussing some studies which argue that pilgrims
on their experience for the religious journey will cross the path into
secular-tourists, in addition,
indicating the importance of religious tourism world-wide and Jordan as
holy land in particular, by discussing the most important sites for Christians
in Jordan by focusing on the baptism site in terms of the history of the site,
the geographic location, the site value to Christians, the development of the
site by government and the number of international and local visitors to the
site in the period from 2009-2018 including relative change every year and
market share.
The
research includes a recent and previous literature review related to the
research topic. Several types of
research related to religious tourism, religious visitor’s motivations and the
pilgrimage and its multifaceted phenomenon discussed. For instance, the study
of (Ebadi, 2015) that in his
research classified the Muslims visitors in Klalid nabi shrine in Iran. The
multifaceted phenomenon of
All the research included in the
literature review does not provide any pieces of evidence of how and what
motivates Christian tourists to visit the holy site. Or how related those
visitors to the holy site in Jordan. Thus, the study is the first study
providing empirical evidence about the motivations of Christians local
Jordanians to visit the baptism site in Jordan. In other words, the research is
a good example of explaining the nature if religious tourism in Jordan and the
motivations and perceptions of Christians visitor, which is a quite new
approach in this type of research.
According to the findings of the research, the visitors perceived the
baptism site differently, some visitors’ travel with assortments of motivations
to the Baptism site. The purpose for 24.2% of the visitors to the site is a
pilgrimage, while 15.8% have relaxation and entertainment (non-religious)
motivations, on the other hand, 12.5% by religious reasons and 47.5% of visitors
motivated by historical, cultural and research respectively. Data also showed
that 23.3% of Christian Jordanian visitors believe in the sacred of the site,
while 40.8% considered the site a touristic and cultural site, while 30.8% they
preferred to combine and declared that it’s a sacred, cultural and touristic
site, only 5% were unable to classify the site.
It’s
clear that the motivations and reasons among the respondents do not have a
comparable pattern among them and obvious that the visitors perceived the
baptism site differently. The explanation behind this logical inconsistency
that some groups of Christian devotees they perceived the baptism as pilgrimage
site while different groups of Christians they perceived it as a historical and
cultural site, where it’s considered as an opportunity for researchers in the
future to narrow the scope to special groups of Christianity. On the other
hand, baptism offers different types of entrainments that are pull factors for
visitors with non-religious motivations. It is basic to contemplate that these
motivations are evolving and changing. Hence, the visitors may look for
numerous experiences and then switch their motivations unknowingly. Therefore,
visitors classified into five forms of tourism and pilgrimage: religious
journeys (pilgrims), cultural pilgrimage tourists, historical pilgrimage
tourists, secular tourists and educational tourism.
CONCLUSION
The
site of Baptism takes varied tourism assignments for its visitors. It has
turned out to be evident that usually difficult to distinguish oneself from the
visitors as indicated by discrete motivation. Visitors can show the overlapping
to the minimum or most extreme degree. The research contributes to our
understanding of Christian visitor’s motivations and awareness among the
visitors of the baptism. The research does this in two ways, firstly, based on
the results of research, secondly, the literature review supported the idea
those visitors able to switch motivation. The study is also making a
contribution to tourism decision-makers in Jordan and academics of
understanding the different motivations among the Christian visitors, which
will help to promote the site. The research also can be extended for future
researches by narrowing the scope to special groups of Christianity such as
Catholic or Orthodox.
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