Religious Tourism Product Development

Religious tourism destinations undertake tourism product development to determine the right religious tourism activities, markets and products to develop. The focus of this book, Debre Libanos, an Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church Monastery, is one of the largest and most iconic monastic communities and major religious tourist destinations in an ancient country blessed with religious sites, pilgrim centers, religious festivals and numerous other religious treasures. Though these heritage have been serving in the religious practices and giving wide ranging socio-cultural and economic benefits for millennia, there is a very insignificant attempt to enhance those resources into a real tourism product ready to be branded in the local and international religious tourism market. This manuscript talks about development intended to allow community use and tourism while preserving the sacredness of the religious place. The book would provide lessons to be learnt not only by tourism managers, planners and other local destination stakeholders but indeed by all religious tourism destinations with similar characteristics as the one in this research study.