According to Hindu mythology, everyday is a festival in some part of India or other. The rich culture is pretty much evident in terms of religion too. Religious tourism in India is the fastest growing circuit of India`s tourism. Secular India is home to Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism and many other.
Destinations often tend to exploit the strengths to promote tourism and India`s competitive advantage lies in the religious tourism because of its cultural and religious heritage. Despite the economic crisis people tend to travel for religious reasons. According to Ambika Soni (Tourism Minister) in times of economic crunch people will turn to god and “Incredible India” can help them achieve spiritual calmness.
India is home to some of the world renowned temples such as
- Tirupati Balaji, which is visited by 50,000 to 100,000 people every day, making it the most visited and richest holy place in the world, while on special occasions and festivals, like the annual Brahmotsavam, the number of pilgrims shoots up to 500,000.
- Vaishno Devi, place of worship near Jammu, northern part of India, where more than 6.7 million tourist visited last year. For this purpose only Indian Railways Tourism Corporation runs a special package tour, while India’s only helicopter ferry service, Pawan Hans, runs a helicopter service right up to the temple
- Golden Temple the holiest Sikh shrine in the city of Amritsar in Punjab offers online booking for accommodation around the temple complex.Travelmasti (www.travelmasti.com), a travel portal, provides religious packages covering as many as 15 destinations across India.
People seeking more of enduring pilgrimages , there are four holy sites called Char Dhams which are on four corners of India. Most of the foreigners are fascinated by the beautiful and majestic festival celebrations of India, fairs like Kumbh and Pushkar melas, but there a significant scope of improvement in terms of promotion of these events. The Rama Lila in the hinterland of Uttar Pradesh is another experience that cannot be had anywhere in the world. The one at Ramnagar goes back two centuries without a break and can be showcased as a historical and social event as well.
Religious tourism is an emerging market in India, a study by Delhi based National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER) shows that of the 230 million tourist trips were undertaken in India, the largest proportion is made up of religious pilgrimages. The research also shows that of all of the package tour organised in India, religious trips account 50 % , much higher than leisure trips ie,28%.The government has realised the potencial market, thus investing more than one million euros for development of tourism department under religious circuits to boost spiritual tourism
The question is how can India build upon its rich heritage and sell the religious tourism product to the world. Improvements in infrastructure especially for religious centres is needed, which will provide the tourist with all kinds of standardized facilities including proper accommodation. To provide a complete religious/spiritual experience tour operators should develop a product which includes key inputs in terms of information and culture.
SOURCES
http://www.ibef.org/artdisplay.aspx?cat_id=391&art_id=3043
Report: Indians Keep The Faith: Religious Tourism Booms in India(www.ibef.org )India Brand Equity Foundation
http://maavaishnodevi.org/help_desk_yatra.asp
http://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-3863175,prtpage-1.cms
Hi Varoon,
I would like to comment on your article, I must say, the title got my attention, because the Indian culture seems very interesting to me. I would like to refer to the debate session from yesterday, where you stated that you would like India to link up blue and grey tourism. After reading your article, I got a total different impression, do you really think developping a strategy to attract two totally different markets will be affective? I think the Indian culture is rich on it’s own, don’t let it loose it’s value by opening new, less interesting(for the core of India) markets. As a pointer, you give a lot of general information in the article, the statement only shines through in the end, you could have said more about the improvements/adjustments, and don’t the touroperators already do this?(Spiritual tours etc)
Anyway, you’ve made me curious, I’d like to experience the ‘Incredible India’! Looking forward to it.
Best regards,
Laura(Student TDM Masterprogramme NHTV)
Hey Varoon,
Like Laura, the title of your article interested me as well. Unfortunately I’ve never been to India but I have visited some religious sites in other countries. You question how India can build upon its rich heritage and sell the religious tourism product to the world. I would add to that that it is a challenge to exploit the religious sites as tourism destinations but at the same time contain the religious and special atmosphere. In this case not purely for sustainability reasons but for market demand reasons. Caution should be at place since marketing and regulating these sites can either help or harm them. I can’t judge the sites in India that you are talking about, but I think that religious sites in general attract a specific market segment especially for its ‘authentic’ atmosphere than the typical ‘grey’ tourists who are more generally taken interested in cultural heritage (not necessarily religious). I’d recon that the sites are nowadays not very authentic anymore since there are so many tourists visiting, but still there is something magical about them. If there would be too much marketing and regulation of the site, it could be that the current market segment that is attracted to the sites might decrease. Thus I would like to add a taste of caution and market research to your article.
Jorinda Ballering
(TDM student, Masterprogramme NHTV)
Hey Laura
Thank you for commenting, coming to you question developing a strategy to attract two different markets is a very viable option in the future as blue tourism which is the beach tourism in India is already a bigger product in India and i would say more than the religious tourism in terms of international arrivals. I think reinvention is the key here, in order to maintain the interest of the tourist a destination has to keep on developing new areas of tourism product.
Tour operators do have their own religious/spiritual tourism product but it is not as attractive as the Golden triangle(Delhi-Agra-Jaipur-Delhi) or beach tourism.Its a niche market which needs to be significantly improved.
Looking forward to having you in my “Incredible India”
Hey Jorinda
Thank you for commenting, as you said marketing and regulating might harm or help them. According to me the market demand reasons would help these religious sites a lot because it would encourage tourism board to further improve the facilities and services provided at these religious sites.i completely agree that these religious sites have some magic about them which is very hard to describe.
Varoon Nasa
(TDM student)
Hello Varoon,
Your article is very interesting, I was surprised by the numbers of religious tourists in India, even though I knew that it was a large tourism motivation in India. I have two comments about it: firstly, I am convinced about the potential of religious tourism for the domestic market in India; as you mentioned, people who travel for religious purposes are not so vulnerable to economic crisis & other threats to the tourism industry, because this type of travel involves a very delicate cultural element, which is religion, beliefs, etc.
However, in my opinion I find it hard to attract international visitors to religious sites in India with RELIGION PURPOSES. Other than buddhist-foreign-visitors visiting Dharamsala (the ‘headquarters of Dalai Lama’), and maybe NRIs (non-resident Indians, living abroad), I am convinced that a good marketing strategy for foreign markets would be to ‘sell’ these religious sites as culture & heritage products. That would have to be carefully approached, as conflicts may arise between the difference of use of the site by the local population X by the visitors.
Concluding, I believe that India still has a great potential for developing grey tourism and has a very strong brand image on religious/espirituality around the world.
Julio Benedetti