More than a million tourists visit religious landmarks in San
Antonio, Texas, each year, observing and sometimes participating in
religious activities there. The San Antonio Missions National
Historical Park--managed by the National Park Service, in
cooperation with the Catholic Church--is one of hundreds of
religious places in America and around the world where tourists
have become a familiar presence. In
Blessed with Tourists,
Thomas S. Bremer explores the intersection of tourism and commerce
with religion in American, using the missions and other San Antonio
sites as prime examples.
Bremer recounts the history of San Antonio, from its Native
American roots to its development as a religious center with the
growth of the Spanish colonial missions, to the modern
transformation of San Antonio into a tourist destination. Employing
both ethnographic and historical approaches, Bremer examines the
concepts of place, identity, aesthetics, and commercialization,
demonstrating numerous ways that modern market forces affect
religious communities. By identifying important connections between
religious and touristic practices, Bremer establishes San Antonio
as a distinctive source for anyone seeking to understand the
interplay between the religious and the secular, the traditional
and the modern.