Religious tourism is the earliest form of tourism in the history of Mankind. Each year, millions of people travel around the world for different religious purposes at sacred places and holy sites are the most common destinations. Moreover giving the multitude of religions and their geographic and cultural distribution around the Globe, people are tempted to visit other countries and their spiritual journey may often result in an interaction with the “other” and may also change the perceptions of pilgrims, tourists and locals. Its new approaches contribute to broaden the tourist ’segment by combining pilgrims, art lovers, adventurers and “curious” visitors at the same religious site. Promoting a religious tourism as a strategy for sustainable development, implies the conservation of the heritage to be transmitted to the future generation, as well as the protection of the environment, without compromising the economic profit to the local communities.This essay stresses on the relationship between tourism and religious sites that are considered as part of the historical and architectural heritage. Lebanon boasts a large number of religious sites and may have acquired a new identity based on its cultural and religious diversity. However, this identity is actually undermined by several factors and interventions. Planning for sustainable tourism requires balancing the requirements of cultural heritage preservation, tourists and local community as is the case of Annaya -a village visited by 4,500,000 tourists each year - which has become an international destination thanks to “Saint Charbel”.This form of tourism is promoting a development and evolution on the social and economical levels and may hence be considered as prototype for religious tourism in Lebanon and it may consequently lead to some problems that can emerge such as the relationship or conflict of interest between the different actors of this form of tourism in Lebanon.