Contemporary Digital Age Pilgrimage in Chichibu in Japan

This article focuses on what makes contemporary pilgrimage sustainable in Chichibu, northwest of Saitama Prefecture, located north of Tokyo, Japan. The 34 Chichibu pilgrimage temples are dedicated to Kannon bodhisattva, the Goddess of Mercy, who is very popular in Japan. The Chichibu pilgrimage originated in the thirteenth century, and it endures to this day. Especially in the Edo period, between 1603 and 1867, Chichibu was a bustling place for many Edo people for the pilgrimage to the Kannon faith. Today, there are efforts to use gamification to adapt to the current digital age to make the Chichibu pilgrimage attractive to tourists of all generations. Gamification is the use of elements of game design in non-game contexts and is designed for social activities and services. A field survey has been conducted in Chichibu to explore what tourists want to get from contemporary pilgrimage. Results have indicated that one of the key factors in the success of contemporary sustainable pilgrimage is gamificated cultural communication between local stakeholders and tourists. In this article, the future use of emotional mapping on cultural routes is also proposed to attract more tourists to destinations based on a contemporary digital age pilgrimage.