Sacred Places, Pilgrimage, and Tourism - Geography of Religion in Japan: Religious Space, Landscape, and Behavior - page 154

Fig. 4.12 Mass in Hirado Church

Some people visit churches as a sign of their faith. For Catholic pilgrims, the
churches in Nagasaki and the Goto Islands have special meaning because they rep-
resent the history of persecution of Christianity, concealment, and revival that their
ancestors experienced. When visitors to a church in the Goto Islands were asked
why they came, many Catholic pilgrims answered “I wish to visit all the churches
on the Goto Islands”. Recently, more tourists without any particular interest in reli-
gion have visited (Matsui 2008a ). Many tourists, such as high/junior high school
students, have visited on school excursions, especially to Oura Cathedral (Fig. 4.15 ).
Here, I describe the rise of new alternative tourism, where small groups and
individuals tour isolated islands such as Goto and hear the local Christian history
told by a local guide (Figs. 4.16 and 4.17 ). Some visitors are impressed by the
beauty of the buildings or the splendor of the location and enter a church by chance.
However, an increasing number of tourists visit the churches in Nagasaki because of
information available in brochures and travel guides, or as part of packaged tours
put together by travel agencies. A new boom in pilgrimages to sacred places may be
taking place. The development of pilgrimage tours to sacred places has been pro-
moted by prefectures, municipalities, and tourist federations to areas with churches
and martyrdom sites regarded as sacred places.
In this section, I analyze the modern dynamic of commercializing a rural area in
Nagasaki, where the faith that is deeply connected to the area constitutes its history
and culture, from the viewpoint of a World Heritage registration movement. The
attempt to register the Nagasaki Church Group as a World Heritage site naturally