Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has reduced travel and tourism worldwide, both domestic and abroad, to a fraction of the norms of which entire economies have become accustomed or even dependent. While our global and shared circumstances are economically distressing at best, those who hold optimistic or innovative viewpoints might question how this global health crisis presents opportunities not only towards the improvement of environmental and cultural health, but also towards transformations of which have not previously been considered or even imagined. The purpose of this paper is to continue a line of inquiry about the transformative nature and potential of the niche tourism segment called temple stays. This conceptual work builds upon a previous publication where a Korean American scholar shared in detail and deciphered her lived experience of a temple stay in Korea as transformative travel (Ross, et al, 2019). As a primer, this paper begins with an overview of the scant literature pertaining to temple stays followed by an overview of travel and tourism in Korea during the pandemic. The heart of this paper delivers a solution of templestaycations. Playing upon our collective need to limit ourselves to staycations, this idea combines the burgeoning tourism niche of temple stays with the growing need for meaningful, healing, and/or growth-producing experiences. By employing advanced technology and boldly enacting nimble change, governments, industry, and temple leaders have the opportunity to pivot, and open the temple doors to far more than hundreds of thousands. One potential is for individuals to learn from ancient cultures how to transform their lives, practices, and homes into sanctuaries of holistic and even spiritual wellbeing. Keywords: Temple stay, Templestaycation, Transformative travel, Transformative tourism, Pandemic tourism, Virtual tourism, Temple stay.