**1. Introduction**

The Santiago Way is a religious pilgrimage route with medieval origins that has become, especially in the last two decades, a religious, tourist, and cultural product with an enormous power of attraction.

It became a catalyst for the process of material construction of a pilgrimage route that has enabled the economic, social, and cultural sustainability of the different regions crossed by the different Paths. However, the aim of this article, and what motivated it, was the interest in knowing to what extent religious motivations, among many others that naturally exist, are still the basis that leads thousands of people, every year, to travel countless kilometres to reach Santiago de Compostela.

There are, undoubtedly, new types of pilgrims, with different motivations, stemming from different factors that interact with each other and lead to the concept of the pilgrim in

**Citation:** Silva, Fátima Matos, José Luis Braga, Miguel Pazos Otón, and Isabel Borges. 2023. Pilgrimages on the Portuguese Way to Santiago de Compostela: Evolution and Motivations. *Religions* 14: 1017. https://doi.org/10.3390/ rel14081017

Academic Editor: Enzo Pace

Received: 30 June 2023 Revised: 3 August 2023 Accepted: 6 August 2023 Published: 8 August 2023

**Copyright:** © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

the most classic sense, but also as a new tourist who walks with the support of specialized companies—the "Turigrims"—or even a bicycle—the "bicygrim"—, among other cultural and/or religious tourists.

The analysis of statistical data from the *Pilgrim's Office of the Cathedral of Santiago* allows us to conclude that, in fact, religious motivations are still the driving force and also the strongest uniting factor among all types of pilgrims. However, nowadays, Santiago Way is characterized by being multi-motivational, not attending only to religious motivations (Amaro et al. 2018; Lois-González and Santos 2015).

Pilgrimage is an ancient form of mobility and a key precursor to modern tourism (Zapponi 2010). Tourism is one of the most relevant supports for the territory's sustainability, reaching a dimension that places it in a leading position among other economic activities. As it happens in many other tourist destinations, religious tourism is also one of the increasing segments in Portugal, as an economic activity and as an outcome of the movement of people. One route that has created greater dynamism, especially in the northern region of Portugal, is the Portuguese Way to Santiago, namely the Central Way and, more recently, the Coastal Way. These pilgrimage routes are the focus of this study.

Religious tourism is one of the oldest types of tourism in the world, being one of the first reasons people travel. The concept of religious tourism has been progressively transformed and updated. In fact, several studies indicate that religious tourism is a "fast-growing segment" of this industry (Griffin and Raj 2017). According to numerous definitions, religious tourism is related to "all travels outside the usual environment for religious purposes", which includes pilgrimage tours (Di Giovine and Elsner 2016, p. 722). Thus, religious tourism is a type of tourism, which includes people of faith who travel individually or in groups, for religious or spiritual purposes (Griffin and Raj 2017). The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO 1995) states that religious tourism can be one of the most effective instruments to provide broad and sustainable development.

The definition of religious tourism and pilgrimage tourism may seem alike, but there are, however, some differences (Vázquez de la Torre et al. 2010). Regarding religious tourism, the most important are the places of worship; in the case of pilgrimage tourism, in addition to considering the places of worship, the connection between places is important, with the need to travel to continue the visit, which contributes to the appearance of routes, itineraries or pilgrimage circuits (Gil de Arriba 2006), among which is the *Camino de Santiago*.

Religious tourism can be understood as an activity carried out by persons who travel for religious motivations or to attend events of a religious nature. It represents an opportunity for the development of tourist activities and for the economic and social development of the locations where they were built. Even more, because religious tourists are more loyal to the destination, they visit more than traditional tourists, as they repeatedly visit the same religious place in a shorter period (Robles 2001).

Religious and spiritual motivations are, usually, the basis of pilgrimages. However, core motivation is a form of transformation that includes inner values and questions about the meaning of life (Haab 1998). As Dyas (2020) says "And yet many people, including a large number who don't have any form of religious belief, still find such places a helpful way into exploring spirituality and enriching their lives. That is not an accident, because that is, in fact, what these places are for: to make us pause, reflect, and respond" (p. 7).

Spirituality is an individual phenomenon where one recognizes the importance of directing their lives towards something immaterial that is beyond or greater than themselves, with the recognition of some dependence on a higher power that is invisible or spiritual (Carlson and Martin 1999). Spirituality is an individual practice, but it is also related to the process of expanding beliefs around the meaning of life and connection with others. Hence spirituality is related to our inner consciousness, a particular form of energizing work action (Cavanagh et al. 2001; Guillory 2000).

Religiously motivated pilgrimages include belief in God (in a Christian sense) and the practice of traditional rituals. But as Dyas (2020) states "We are fortunate to have many ways of being a pilgrim today. The majority of pilgrims have some form of spiritual connection with the Way" (p. 8). A pilgrimage with spiritual motives is based on the idea of an unstructured, individual, and transcendental relationship (Frey 2002). Even if, experienced individually, the pilgrimage is a social process that develops interactively over time. Although the majority of pilgrims come from a Christian background, many do not practice their religion in their daily lives, or on the Santiago Way.

Based on these assumptions, in this research paper, we intend to address the issue of religious tourism and pilgrimages to Santiago, studying the Portuguese Central Way and the Coastal Way between Porto and Valença.

We also intend to contextualise the Portuguese Way to Santiago both in historical and cultural terms, analysing statistical data from the Santiago Pilgrim's Office between 2004 and 2022 in various areas, and highlighting religious motivations. We will also analyse the statistical data relating to the five-year period 2018–2022 of the pilgrims who flocked to the Chapel of *Nossa Senhora das Verdades*—Support Centre for Pilgrims on the Portuguese Way to Santiago.

Furthermore, we will triangulate the statistical quantitative data with a thematic analysis of the indicators inherent in the transcripts of semi-structured interviews carried out with stakeholders of the Portuguese Way to Santiago.

This research paper is divided into seven sections. In addition to this introduction, the methods of data collection and analysis adopted will be described. On the other hand, a review of the relevant literature will be carried out, followed by the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the results, their discussion and, finally, in the conclusion, the limits of this study and future research lines will be highlighted.
