@phdthesis{Bader2012, author = {Bader, Malek}, title = {Religious tourism in Jordan: current situation, future developments and prospects : a case study on Islamic and Christian holy sites}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:824-opus-1110}, school = {Katholische Universit{\"a}t Eichst{\"a}tt-Ingolstadt}, year = {2012}, abstract = {The purpose of this research study is to analyse the state of the religious tourism product in Jordan from three main perspectives: To present the current state of religious tourism in Jordan through studying the tourism movement in the holy sites and analysing the potentials and future prospects. The relationship between the local community and these sites will be the second perspective from which the researcher will form the study. A third perspective is studying the visitors' satisfaction about the services presented to them and the evaluation of the current state of the selected holy sites, whether they are Islamic or Christian. The study was carried out at the Islamic and Christian sites of Jordan: five Christian holy sites and eight Islamic holy sites. The selection of these sites was based on their religious and tourist significance, both Islamic and Christian. The researcher obtained data by implementing different tools of study and research; most data depend on national and international statistics, indices of tourism and religious tourism in particular. The researcher's observations were a significant tool in this study and he made valuable observations that could play an important role in developing the religious tourism product in the kingdom if they are well implemented. The researcher conducted very fruitful qualitative research (interviews) with officials working in the field of tourism and, in particular, religious tourism, and he did a lot of interviews with visitors, tourists, and pilgrims at the holy sites, local communities around the holy sites, directors of the holy sites, directors of tourism directorates and religious men (Imams or priests). 211 self-completed questionnaires were filled during the study period (from the beginning of May to the end of August 2009) to analyse religious tourism at the sites from many different perspectives. The questionnaires were analysed with the programme SPSS 17.0, and the interviews were analysed with the help of the programme MAXQDA 10. In other words, the researcher used both qualitative and quantitative methods of research. The overall target of the study was to find answers to the central question whether religious tourism is or can be used as a tool which may help to bring Muslims and Christians in Jordan closer together through a deeper understanding of their common religious heritage. One of the main and important results was about the main aim which shows that the vast majority of those who responded to the questionnaire (83.3\%) believe that understanding common religious heritage is a factor upon which dialogue and a better coexistence between religions can begin to take place in a part of our world which suffers a lot of problems based on religious conflicts. Less than 1\% of the respondents gave a negative answer to this question, which indicates that there are strong feelings for understanding and building relationships based on common religious heritage. This is an important finding because it reiterates the role that common religious heritage has in the promotion of religious sites and the bringing together of people from different religious backgrounds. Christians were found among the Muslims in the Islamic holy sites and vice versa; this encourages the idea of the common religious heritage and its effect on the convergence and understanding between the people of different religions. However, there is one problem and this is related to visitors from Israel, but this is because of the well-known political reasons and not due to religious beliefs of the people. Finally, on the social level and concerning intercultural and religious heritage, the researcher hopes through this project that it will contribute to develop a basis on which it is possible to bring Muslims and Christians in Jordan closer together through a deeper understanding of their common religious heritage.}, subject = {Religion; Wallfahrt; Jordanien; Tourismus}, language = {en} }