The Pilgrimage to Mecca: An Explanatory and Predictive Model
In: Environment and planning. A, Band 10, Heft 9, S. 1053-1071
ISSN: 1472-3409
The recent and continuing phenomenal growth in the numbers undertaking the pilgrimage to Mecca is considered against the backcloth of the host region's finite resources. A multiple-regression model is developed which seeks to explain the present pattern of pilgrim movement and to predict future numbers. Insights are provided into the actual stage-by-stage development towards the final model. The assumptions implicit within our evaluations are clearly and unequivocably indicated and discussed. Improved levels of explanation result from more-realistic data inputs. Future pilgrim numbers are predicted for 1983 and 1993. The problem of the ever increasing numbers of pilgrims is briefly alluded to and interim measures are suggested.