ABSTRACT
The growth in importance of religious tourism in a time of increasing secularisation (at least in the Developed World) is one of the great paradoxes of contemporary cultural tourism. All the organisations involved in the commercial side of the religious tourism business are small firms. They vary in size, product, character and ownership from monastic religious communities operating accommodation businesses as charitable foundations to highly commercial private-sector retailers (souvenirs, bookshops, religious items) and specialist tour operators involved in organising pilgrimage itineraries. Even those people who travel independently for religious purposes are catered for by small firms operating catering and merchandising outlets or connected with the development of interpretative facilities such as audio-visual presentations, site museums and artefact displays. Although acting under the umbrella of larger organisations, individual churches, chapels, mosques, synagogues and shrines generally operate as quasi-autonomous small firms (Shackley 2002). Because the core attractions of the religious tourism business are generally managed by not-for-profit organisations the volume and value of these peripheral commercial activities may frequently be underestimated. Indeed, the accommodation and hospitality business associated with religious tourism has been the subject of very little sustained analysis (Shackley 2002). This chapter focuses upon one segment of the religious accommodation market, namely the Retreat House, taking an international perspective on the retreat business and its position in contemporary religious tourism, and then focusing in detail, by way of example, on an analysis of U.K. Retreat Houses.
