Specificity of organising religious and pilgrim trips

The relevance of the article connects with the specifics of organising religious and pilgrim trips. Not only special needs of tourists (pilgrims) traveling for religious purposes determine this specificity. The significant difference in the current stage of religious tourism development is various organizers of religious and pilgrim trips’ high involvement. The article first attempts to generalize and classify the organizers of religious tourism in Russia, explaining their role and functions in the religious tourism market. The article also discusses the topic of legislative regulation of organising pilgrim trips by religious organizations that do not belong to tourist operators and agents, while developing and offering, in fact, a tourist product. The author presents the types of pilgrimage services and gives their characteristics. The conclusion of the article identifies reasons why the vast majority of spiritual pilgrims prefer to use the services of non-tourist organizers.Presented conclusions and generalizations can help tourist organizations in the formation and promotion of a religious tourist product.