BY DELISA THWALA
MBABANE – The Roman Catholic church has had an impact on the increasing numbers of domestic tourism in the country.
This was revealed by Eswatini Tourism Authority (ETA) Head of Marketing Sboniso Madlopha. He was unpacking the hive of activity they are expecting this festive season. Madlopha said the Roman Catholic Church had been noted to play a massive role in religion tourism across the four regions.
Madlopha further encouraged other churches to do the same and further help boost the country GDP. He said they had seen how the international Catholics have been coming into the country to take part in worship with emaSwati Catholics.
“The church has had a huge impact and we are happy to see an increasing number of religious tourism. We are expecting more of it this festive because churches usually take part in conventions and camps,” he said.
In addition he said some churches had missionary work or pilgrimage among other religious activities. For countries with deep roots in religion, this tourism edges out as the leading form of tourism, he said.
A senior Catholic from Mater Dolorosa Nomalungelo Thwala said they had been full of activity as a religion since the COVID-19 restrictions had been lifted.
She said in their Religion has over the years had great effects and impacts on tourism.
“This is due to the fact that religion has influenced the local tourism scene in an outstanding manner. Notably, there are very many religious sites that also double as key tourist attraction sites. As such, it goes without saying that these two sectors are interrelated with each other as they are dependent of each other,” she said.
The Roman Catholic Church is known for having major church conferences, hikes to special and sacred places and known for travelling to places like Ngome, which in previous has been done in the country. Worth noting is that one of the greatest things about religion is that it is very old. The history of Roman religion dates back to at least 108 years ago. As such, the history of religion is quite important in that it constitutes a very important aspect of tourism; that of learning more about how religion has grown and developed over the years.
