Holy Tourism

I just saw a flier from my (thriving) Church offering almost ten "Missions" Trips to various exotic locales. Having grown up in poor countries and with many missionary friends, I've always wondered how much value the trips added for the missions as opposed to the trippers. They seem to be more Holy Tourism than Missional.

That being said, my biggest reaction to my Church's efforts (and I presume most others) is its seemingly random scattering of activities. We've got mission relationships everywhere - From Nairobi to New Zealand. Given limited resources that's a bad approach - we're spreading ourselves over too many locales to have serious impact.

Are we doing this for the tourism? After all people like to go to different places - so is that why we have so many missions?

Why don't churches join together to do this? Each large church support two international mission sites, smaller ones support one and have a common pool of Holy Tours run by professionals that can take them to any of these sites? By buying centrally, the Holy Tour group can probably get better rates, allowing the Missions to earn a margin off of the Tourists.

That margin could be the greatest value that the Holy Tourists could provide.