The romeries: Tourist opportunity and social relationships between local and visitors. The case of la Cerdanya in Catalonia (Spain)

© 2018 Universidad de Murcia. All rights reserved. In the latter years new activities are developing about the cultural and religious tourism with the aim to announce and keep alive the own folklore of the past generations. Between these historical, cultural and tourist phenomena this is the pilgrimage. There are group excursions, generally afoot, to hermitages and sanctuaries where, besides the purely religious activities, also he takes advantage to realize other festive acts linked with the local traditions. Thus, with the pilgrimages, some religious places in the territories of interior have turned into points of meeting between the tourists and the local population, with a triple function: to revalue the local heritage, to attract visitors and to be a place of meeting between the local community and tourists. In this work, from documentation and statistics on the topic and of you interview participants, the case of the pilgrimages has been analyzed in the Spanish Cerdanya (the so called “aplecs”), and has been confirmed that treats itself about a few popular events that they allow to revalue the tourism in the territory, reaffirming the local identity, preserving the local heritage and favoring the social relations between people with different interests and motivations.