希臘哲學家Block曾云：「有希望之處，則有宗教」。宗教給予人們希望、並豐富其精神生活。人類發展史上，宗教在政治、經濟、生活等層面均扮演重要角色，而對觀光的形成，如朝聖、宗教之旅、進香團等，亦助益甚遠。自古以來，宗教上的朝聖是一重要的旅遊動機，宗教聖地朝覲也是一重要的旅遊項目，在觀光上佔一重要地位。儘管目前宗教觀光仍發達，且多數宗教單位朝觀光化發展，然而有關宗教觀光之研究甚少，缺乏明確的宗教觀光客相關統計資料，故本研究以台南南鯤鯓代天府為例，探討其宗教觀光客個人特性、旅遊動機、行前期望、實際體驗滿意度，及其之間的關係，期以此研究成果作為宗教或觀光有關單位未來規劃管理之參考。

The ancient Greek philosopher Bloch wrote, "Where there is hope, there is religion." Probably the most widely held view of religion is that it gives people hope and introduces a spiritual dimension into their life. In human history, religion played an important role not only in politics, economics, and everyday life, but also in tourism. One just needs to think of the "pilgrimages" that are common in several major religions and then there are tourists who want to visit areas to see and experience places or events associated with religions other than their own. One can say that traveling to religious holy lands is one of the very important activities in tourism. Although religious tourism has grown dramatically in recent decades, only a few researches have pursued this area of study. Moreover, much of their work only addresses demographic backgrounds. Therefore, this research is to use the Taitian Temple of Nan Kun Shen, Tainan, Taiwan in a case study to investigate religious tourists' travel motivation, expectation, perception, and their relationships including relations to demographic factors and the role of visiting the temple in there "overall" trip. The results are to be used in strategic planning and in the management of tourism by governmental agencies.