**4. Pilgrimage Motivations**

The Way of Santiago is a physical journey that is made with effort, stage by stage. But it is also a spiritual journey, among other reasons, full of teachings and learning, where each person lives the Way in a different manner.

In the Middle Ages and in later times, devotees from all social classes, including royalty, peregrinate almost exclusively for religious reasons to Santiago. Nowadays, we find a considerable percentage of pilgrims and walkers who do not do it only for religious reasons, but for cultural or other motivations.

Although the pilgrims' motivations may vary, we believe that religious motivations, as proven by the statistical data, are still the main ones today.

The motivations of pilgrims to undertake the Santiago Way vary greatly among individuals. Many influences, such as cultural ones, cause people to undertake pilgrimages, and there are as many motives for pilgrimage as there are spiritual or religious needs.

Motivation is "something which commits people to a course of action, i.e., the driving force which exists in all individuals" (Raj et al. 2015, p. 109). Studies have identified different motives for religious tourism and for pilgrimages. Historically, a pilgrim was described as a person who walked to a holy place for religious motives (Rinschede 1992), a traditional pilgrimage conducted with a strong religious motivation (Shinde 2007). But, nowadays, the modern pilgrim is not necessarily motivated by religious reasons (Štefko et al. 2015) and travels for many other reasons (Oviedo et al. 2014).

Frey (1998) conducted an anthropological analysis based on the increase in the number of pilgrims since the 1980s. The author stated that the current pilgrims went to Santiago for several reasons that might change throughout the Way. She differentiated between (1) religious motives (such as the fulfilment of promises, a crisis, the renewal of faith, or praying for others), (2) spiritual motives (personal searches or inner journeys of transformation), and (3) historical and cultural motives combined. Frey, being a pilgrim of the Way, claimed

that pilgrims noted the difference between religious and spiritual motives as well as the difference between orthodoxy and personal devotion.

According to Francisco Singul (1999), there are five main motivations for walking the Santiago Ways: (i) traditional religious (devotion); (ii) cultural (medieval art, history); (iii) ecological (contemplation and enjoyment of the landscape and the natural environment); (iv) spiritual and ecumenic; and (v) personal (meditation on one's life).

For some pilgrims, walking along the Way is a way of getting to know the local culture and learning more about the history and traditions of the region. The various routes pass through several cities and towns with a vast and diverse cultural and historical heritage, which is an important tourist-cultural attraction. Walking along the Way is exciting and challenging for some pilgrims. The routes offer walkers the opportunity to experience different landscapes, terrains, and climates as well as meet people from all over the world.

For Oviedo et al. (2014), walking to Santiago is a way of finding peace, spiritual tranquillity, and spiritual growth. The journey can offer an opportunity for reflection and meditation, time to reflect on possible decision-making and changes in way of life and motivations that have gained ground relative to religious motivations. In fact, many pilgrims walk as a way of challenging themselves and testing their physical and mental limits or overcoming a personal crisis, such as a divorce or the death of a loved one.

The data provided by the Pilgrim's Office compiles only three types of motives: religious, non-religious, and religious and other unspecified. However, they are data that reflect the totality of pilgrims on the different Jacobean routes. We admit that it is possible that these general figures also characterise the motivations of the pilgrims who travelled the Portuguese Way to Santiago in the variants under study.

Analysing the data in the graph (Figure 4), we can quickly conclude that the pilgrimages made for religious or other unspecified motivations between 2004 and 2022, even considered separately, largely exceeded the number of pilgrims who made the Way without religious motivations. However, it is the type "religious or other reasons" that exceeds the other types throughout the 19 years that the statistics record, with two exceptions. These exceptions concern the Holy Years 2004 and 2010, in which the pilgrims' motivations for religious reasons largely exceeded the other comprehensive type of "religious or other motivations", especially in 2004.

In the last two Holy Years—2021 and 2022—there has been a paradigm shift whose motives are hard to find, so even though religious motivation is largely predominant, the overarching type "religious or other motivations" has surpassed stated religious motivations as the sole motive.

It would be necessary for the statistics made available by the Pilgrim's Office to be more detailed in terms of motivations in order to be able to accurately assess what has justified this change of paradigm.

One hypothetical justification has to do with the worldwide publicity that has been given to the Ways of Santiago, which has enabled a significant increase in the number of pilgrims, with different motivations, namely cultural. It also seems to us that this is a consequence of the post-pandemic phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly had an impact on the motivations of pilgrims undertaking the Santiago Way. The contemporary world was unaware of the pandemic situation and had never been restricted from going out, visiting, experiencing new situations, or contacting nature and oneself—in a word, going on a pilgrimage. The uncertainty of the future was distressing. When they had this chance, as well as the recovery of tourism at the world level, the number of pilgrims also increased exponentially, although keeping religious motivations as the priority, others also joined in.

Oviedo et al. (2014) state that, considering the complexity of the pilgrims' motivations, individuals with "various, often contrasting, motivations and expectations walk side by side" (p. 433) on the Santiago Way pilgrimage route.

There is no shortage of reasons to do the Santiago Way, even if it is a challenge for many pilgrims. Whatever the main motivation is, they are all valid because it is a unique

experience. As the journey ends, they are not the same person as at the beginning of the pilgrimage.

**Figure 4.** Evolution of pilgrims according to motivations. Source of data: own elaboration from Pilgrim's Office statistics.
