Tenth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

The surge in tourism on the Camino de Santiago is radically changing the nature of the pilgrimage, as businesses from local to international have emerged to provide amenities desired by present-day travelers. This challenges the values that Pilgrim Associations and many repeat pilgrims want to preserve. They would recreate a romanticized vision of the values of medieval hospitality: egalitarianism, generosity, acceptance, solidarity, austerity, and spirituality, values advocated primarily in traditional, not-for-profit pilgrim lodging. In this study, the authors analyze how the proliferation of private, for-profit lodging on the Camino affects the discourse of values on the pilgrimage routes, as many for-profit lodgings attempt to reproduce what pilgrims experience in traditional albergues, while simultaneously providing the amenities and sense of exclusivity that tourists demand. The authors analyse the discourse that for-profit albergues employ and examine surveys and Camino websites to ascertain the reactions of individual pilgrims to the contrasting types of lodging. As Pilgrim Associations, the Church, and other constituents of the Camino community attempt to maintain the presence of their values on the Camino, the disjunction between these values and the dominant values of our society—social and economic stratification, exclusivity, comfort, and consumer-driven convenience—becomes more and more evident.