CLUSTERING VISITORS TO A RELIGIOUS ISLAND: THE CASE OF TINOS DESPINA ASLAN Ministry of Economy and Finance, Nikis Street 5-7, 105 57 Athens KONSTANTINOS ANDRIOTIS Cyprus University of Technology, P.O. Box 50329, 3603 Lemessos, Cyprus Tourists visiting religious destinations are usually influenced by religious motivations. However, this might not be the case for all tourists, since visitors to religious sites may visit a destination not only for pilgrimage, but also to satisfy various needs interlinked with social, cultural and recreational factors. This paper attempts to investigate the motivations and activities of tourists visiting Tinos, a Greek island known as a religious destination for Christian Orthodox, by undertaking a clustering approach. A self-administrated questionnaire was distributed to 97 visitors of Tinos during the summer of 2007. From the findings it is evident that although the island is considered as one of the main religious sites for Christian Orthodox, tourists are not a homogenous group. Instead, the analytical approach adopted produced three segments, namely the “cultural tourists”, the “vacationers” and the “religious tourists”. Introduction Religiously motivated travel to sacred places is perhaps the oldest and most prevalent type of travel in human history (Jackowski and Smith, 1992; Rinschede, 1992). Αlthough some scholars may dispute Brodsky- Porges (1981:54) claim that “even to this present era, religion is among the most influential of motivators”, the influence of religion on tourist movements is still undeniable and very great. Depending on the degree of their religious belief, people travel to sacred places searching for truth, enlightenment, or an authentic experience with the divine, to satisfy their spiritual or material needs (Vuconic, 1996). Tinos, which is located in the Cyclades group of islands in Greece, forms a sacred site for Christian Orthodox because of the Church of the Madonna of the Annunciation (Evangelistria) and its miraculous healing icon (Terzidou et al, 2008). The Church of Annunciation is besieged annually by large numbers of visitors who seek blessing and forgiveness (Dubisch, 1995). It is a pilgrimage site that attracts visitors who are either members of religious 1