Religious Heritage, Tourism, and Pilgrimage in Africa: Historical, Traditional, and Contemporary Perspectives

The purpose of this chapter is to provide historical perspectives, patterns and challenges, as well as prospects for religious tourism around the African continent. We argue that religious tourism has been growing exponentially on the continent and as such, Africa may become a more popular religious tourism destination if certain conditions are met. Such popularity may result in increased activity related to key markets associated with mosque visitation, halal tourism, events, and conferencing linked with religion as well as volunteer tourism. This is especially true when considering the growing focus on pilgrimages to Africa and short-term volunteer missions to natural disaster zones and poverty-stricken regions there. However, for this to happen, numerous development and management obstacles should be addressed. For example, more focus on policy and planning for religious tourism, which has largely been neglected up to this point, should be a priority for this region. Additionally, extremist groups pose a significant safety and security threat to the growth of this sector. This is further compounded by the negative views of the continent as being primitive, backward, and often termed the ‘dark continent’ by the media. Recommendations are made therefore for better planning, management, promotion, and marketing of the region, as obvious potential exists for the development of the religious tourism market.