Joseph Wood and Dr. Kendal Brown, History
The pilgrimage to the tomb of St. James in Santiago de Compostela was proclaimed the first European Cultural itinerary by the Council of Europe in 1987. Six years later, UNESCO designated the pilgrimage route a World Heritage Site for its cultural significance during the Middle Ages. In addition to encouraging cultural exchanges in Spain, the medieval pilgrimage had significant economic and political consequences. During the last two decades of the twentieth century, the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela experienced a dramatic rediscovery. Once again, thousands of pilgrims began to make the journey across northern Spain to visit the tomb of St. James. The purpose of this project was to compare the economic impact of the pilgrimage on the economy of Santiago de Compostela after its rediscovery in the late twentieth century with its well-documented economic impact during the twelfth century.
In order to measure the economic impact of the rediscovered pilgrimage, I traveled to northern Spain to bike over 800 kilometers from Roncesvalles near the French border to Santiago de Compostela in the northwest corner of Spain. As I biked across northern Spain, I studied the thriving pilgrimage industry. I observed the specially designed layout of pilgrimage towns and the wide range of goods and services that these towns provide primarily for the pilgrims.
Upon completing the pilgrimage, I spent several days in Santiago de Compostela collecting data to determine the economic impact of the pilgrimage from the following institutions: La Delegación Diocesana de Peregrinaciones, El Instituto Galego de Estadística, El Ministerio de Industria Turismo y Comercio, Santiago Turismo, La Xunta de Galicia and El Centro de Estudos e Investigacions Turísticas (CETUR) at La Universidade de Santiago de Compostela. The data I collected at these institutions suggests that the pilgrimage does in fact have a significant economic impact on the city of Santiago de Compostela, although further investigation is required in order to make a reliable comparison with the economic impact of the pilgrimage during the twelfth century.
The number of pilgrims who complete more than 100 kilometers of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela has increased from 4,918 in 1990 to 114,026 in 2007. A large majority of these pilgrims, 82.4%, did the pilgrimage on foot and 91.7% of pilgrims reported that religion was one of their primary motivations for completing the pilgrimage. Although the Delegación Diocesana de Peregrinaciones has not released all statistical data for 2008, the number of pilgrims arriving in Santiago de Compostela during the first seven months of 2008 had increased 9.9% as compared with the first seven months of 2007. This rapid increase in the number of pilgrims suggests that the already significant economic impact of the pilgrimage on the city of Santiago de Compostela will continue to grow in the future.
In 2007, Spain received 57.4 million tourists who contributed 49.95 billion Euros to the Spanish economy. Tourism, therefore, constituted approximately 5.1% of the Spanish economy in 2007. The average tourist in Spain spent 870 Euros. In Galicia, the autonomous community where Santiago de Compostela is located, however, these numbers were significantly lower. In 2007, Galicia received approximately 4 million tourists who contributed 891 million Euros to the local economy. Tourism, therefore, constituted only 1.7% of the Galician economy in 2007. According to this data, therefore, it appears that tourism, including the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, has a relatively limited economic impact on the autonomous community of Galicia.
This data, however, does not reveal the impact of the pilgrimage on the city of Santiago de Compostela itself. It is likely that of those 4 million tourists who visit Galicia annually, a large percentage spend their time in Santiago de Compostela. Unfortunately, neither the city of Santiago de Compostela nor the regional government was able to provide these key statistics while I was in Spain. I am currently working with el Centro de Estudos e Investigacions Turísticas (CETUR) at La Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, an organization that specializes in tourism research in Galicia, to identify these key statistics.
With this information, I will be able measure the economic impact of the pilgrimage on the city of Santiago de Compostela more clearly and thus complete my research. From my experience as a pilgrim in Santiago de Compostela, I expect to discover that tourism is in fact the economic motor of this small city of 93,712 inhabitants, although official pilgrims likely make up a small percentage of tourists in the city. Although official pilgrims may not be the most significant element of the local economy today, however, their influence is certainly increasing and so, therefore, is their contribution to the economy of Santiago de Compostela.