Can Mega Pilgrimages Increase Participants’ Well-Being? Evidence From the World Youth Day 2023

A pilgrimage is a ritual mega event in which participants seek transformation in their daily lives, which can increase their life satisfaction. This study proposes a dynamic mechanism using a two-stage research design to determine how a mega pilgrimage improves participants’ well-being based on the PERMA framework. We test a dynamic model in which variations in individuals’ religious faith affect their life satisfaction through a multidimensional measure of well-being. Data were collected before and after participants attended a mega pilgrimage at the World Youth Day 2023 in Lisbon, Portugal. We found that a change in religious faith leads to changes in all five dimensions (PERMA) of individual well-being, whereas changes in the five dimensions have significant effects on a change in life satisfaction. This result implies that pilgrimages and other mega events play different roles in shaping individuals’ long-term experience.