Religious Tourism: A New Era, a Dynamic Industry
Introduction:
Religious tourism is the fastest growth area in the holiday industry. Religious tourism, also commonly referred to as faith tourism, is a form of tourism, whereby people of faith travel individually or in groups for pilgrimage, missionary, or fellowship purposes. The world's largest form of mass religious tourism takes place at the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. North American religious tourists comprise an estimated $10 billion of this industry. Many of today's most popular religious tourism destinations are related to ancient places of worship or to the sites of apparent miracles.

Religious’s tourism segments: in the 21st century religious tourism no longer consist of only pilgrimage and missionary travel; rather, in the modern-world it embraces the following twelve vacation segments:

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Pilgrimages Missionary Cruises Leisure/getaways Conferences/conventions Destinations/attractions Retreats/guesthouses Christian camps Adventure/active Volunteer vacations Student/youth Family/intergenerational

Examples of Islam tourism:
Recently some travel agencies are specialized in the organization of nun trips. These agencies make their journey as pilgrimage towards holy places. If we take the example of Hajj, the most important holiday of Muslims’ life. People spend their savings to go to Mecca for Hajj. The travel agencies offer trips inclusive to Muslims who want to make a pilgrimage in Mecca. The central city of Islamic world Mecca is located in Saudi Arabia. Certainly, religious tourism for Muslims is developed not only in Saudi Arabia, but also in Algeria, Iran, Malaysia, Turkey, Oman, Syria, UAE, Bahrain, Lebanon and Egypt. These countries are considered the world's top developing Muslim countries for religious tourism. Four countries including Morocco, Egypt, Turkey and Malaysia are also Muslim countries for religious tourism with 17.5 million guests in