TOURISM AND SPIRITUALITY: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

Using phenomenological analysis, this paper examines the concept of ‘spirituality’ in the lived travel experience of an individual tourist. The paper contributes a phenomenological snippet of the tourist’s ‘portrait’ (the individual’s rich story, much like a portrait painting) to reveal the spiritual meaning Amber reportedly gained from and imbued onto her travel experiences with the tour operator, Hands up Holidays. The paper argues that when discussing the ‘spiritual’ dimension of tourism, one potential avenue is to seek to understand how people seek meaning and life purpose themselves, their quest for meaning, and experiences of transcendence and connectedness as subjectively lived through their travel. The paper concludes that the phenomenological view may be a useful frame through which to further examine the personal meaning of travel as lived by people, both in religious and non-religious contexts, but contextualised within the wider meaning of their lives.

► Examines the conceptual bridge between tourism and spirituality. ► Advances spirituality as a conceptual lens. ► Travel experiences endowed with spiritual meaning. ► Tourism participation endows people with spiritual meaning. ► Proposes an innovative phenomenological, ‘portrait’ methodological approach.