Who Is Interested in Developing the Way of Saint James? The Pilgrimage from Faith to Tourism

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Author,

It was a pleasure to have read your work. I hope that you will take my suggestions in the spirit with which these were given, one of genuine desire to help improve your article. These are the suggestions and changes:

CETUR and ANTE in Spanish before the English translations

Excess space in Lines 241, 319, 385, and 444

Stylistic suggestion: "One should bear in mind that" as opposed to "it should be borne in mind." "It should be kept in mind" sounds better, too.

Line 227: is "recovery" better replaced by "renovation"?

Table 1 and 3 formatting: Right-justify figures for better readability, unless the /Religions/ style sheet recommends otherwise.

Table 2: thousands separator is a period instead of a comma, the latter used more often in standard English

Table 3: If we are talking about percentages, why are most of the numbers higher than 100? What could be the explanation for the zero percentage of foreigner pilgrims in the 1943 row? This appears to be improbable or a massive gap in the data source that needs to be explained.

Line 288: "extensive margin of freedom" may be recast as "extensive discretion" or "extensive flexibility"?

Lines 324-326 blank (excess space)

Line 328: The sentence may be recast for better clarity. Is this an evolution or an improvement? Do we refer to the phase or the protagonists of each phase?

Line 330: "The number of players increases" or "More players are involved"

Line 386: typographical error (The Way s)

Lines 394-395: "Holy years under the microscope" seems to be too hewed to the natural sciences. May you consider a different phrasing, such as "Holy years compared and contrasted"?

Line 396: it would be somewhat absurd to say that there are four peaks when what we wish to say is that the number of attendees steadily increased in each jubilee year.

Line 414: Comparison among 1989, 2009, and 2018 figures

Lines 425-437: The total percentages appear to be more than 100%, something that suggests that these were answers to a multiple-response question. As such, I suggest recasting the table for greater clarity. It may help if a discussion of the difference between "religious" and "spiritual" be included for the benefit of this article's future readers. This can be tacked on to the brief discussion in Lines 444-450.

Line 456: I wouldn't be so confident in saying that there is exponential growth. There is certainly a multiple, but this is neither exponential nor parabolic. I ask the author's indulgence, as my understanding of math precludes me from using these terms indiscriminately.

The results section appears to be thin, given the wealth of information in the discussion. I suggest considering the works of Greenia and Taín Guzmán, as well as the Rudesindus journal.

Line 481: birth year as opposed to birth date

Line 486: "preponderance" as opposed to "prerogative"?

Conclusions: May I suggest adding recommendations for future study, such as issues on sustainability and political economy?

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

thank you for your suggestions and corrections. We have accepted all corrections. Moreover, the conclusions supported by the results are been improved. 

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 2 Report

The author (s) describes the history of the development of the Way of St. James (Spain) and presents statistics of the pilgrims' numbers and motivation.

However, the analysis part (Subchapter: Results) is very short, article lacks correlations to the newest trends of pilgrimage research. The inclusion such conceptions as „valuistic journeys”, „spiritual tourism” or „heritage tourism” would enrich the article and analysis. 

In the abstract author (s) mentioned such categories as  “space of faith”, “live heritage space”, „post secular pilgrimage” , ”slow mobility”, „liminality”, „the sense of community”  and “territorial management”. However these categories weren't discussed and reflected in the article. 

The title of the article „Who is Interested in Developing The Way of Saint
James? The Pilgrimage from Faith to Tourism” doesn't reflect the content. Motivation of the pilgrims' is analysed only by quoting some statistics. There is the lack of the deeper insights of the change in pilgrims motivation. 

Some other remarks:

1) Figure 2. It is not clear map. The names or numbers of the Ways should appear in the map also. 

2) The conception of the secularisation mentioned in the Conclusions only and doesn't analysed in the context of the pilgrims' motivation.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, 

thank you for your suggestions. We have modified the Figure 2 and the "results" and "conclusions" subchapters were modified and enriched. Also the introduction was improved with other references. The categories introduced in the abstract were better discussed in the paper. 

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 3 Report

Line 24, inventio

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Author,

Thank you for pulling through with the revisions. I look forward to the publication of your paper.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.doc