Spiritual Tourism: Unexplored Territory

Reema Sisodia - Mumbai

Science and technology have transcended borders making the world a global village, which has also increased debates between the rational and philosophical. Whatever the situation and however modern and technologically advanced the globe may become, spiritualism is something that can never be out dated. Spiritual tourism is fast catching up the world over. In fact, research has shown that modern life and high paced living has drawn people more towards spiritual and pilgrim sojourns. This fact can be reinforced by information received from the Indian Haj Committee, superintendent, Akbar, who mentioned that there has been a noticeable increase in pilgrim travel from India and across the world for Haj every passing year. He further revealed that the recent figure of the people from India who took the Haj pilgrimage was approximately 1,20, 000. There are also plans to increase the quota from India.

Christian tours and pilgrimage from India is also on the rise. People visit the Holyland of Israel despite the problems though the percentage of pilgrim tourists to the destination can be four folds if the socio-political tension was normal. Apart from the Holy Land, there are a host of destinations for Christian pilgrimage that are popular in India. Says Michael Azavedo, manager, Golden Holyland Tours, who has been conducting tours from the past seven years, "We organise tours to the Israel and Egypt regularly. Till today we have conducted 44 tours to the destination. In the month of May and October, we also organise tours to the Vatican, Lourdes, Fatima, Garabandal (Spain), Paris, Rome, Rotondo (Italy) Padre Pio, St Antony of Padua, Venice, Pisa etc. There is great potential in the area of spiritual and religious tourism even in our country, which needs to be tapped earnestly."

Crossing Borders

Indian spirituality, philosophy and thoughts have also transcended borders, wherein even the West is aping India, we could say, in various areas of spirituality which may not necessarily be religiously inclined. Yoga, meditation and ancient philosophy has established its place in the western society. Foreigners who visit Indian pilgrimage sites, usually come to study architecture or learn more about Indian philosophy. For example, tourists from South East Asia and Japan visit India purely due to their faith since India is the seat of Buddhism. Likewise, Whitefield, which is one of the bases for the Puttaparthi Sai Baba, is a common destination for Japanese, Israelis, South Americans, Brazilians and Belgians. For these people its all about the experience of living a simple life. In fact, for them, it is all an experience. Inbound traffic has a widespread reach in India from the north to the south to centres in Risikesh, Haridwar, Prayag, Barinath, Kedarnath to Pondicherry, Rameshwaram and Tirupati, just to name a few.

The Indian community abroad has taken the efforts to stay connected with Indian traditions, wherein a number of Indians visit the West on festive occasions and religious functions to experience Indian festivals in the west. Hence, outbound travel also gets a fillip with regards to spiritual tourism. Indian inbound traffic especially with regards to the NRI traffic and the Indian Diaspora from the UK and the USA also visit India for both spiritual and religious interests in India. Community based travel to India is a common practice, for example, the Gujarati and Jain community travel as a group to various pilgrim and spiritual centres of their interest.

Counting The Numbers

As per research, religious tourism has grown rapidly and will keep growing, although gradually. It has been estimated that there has been a 30 to 35 per cent rise in religious tourists as compared to last year. According to the Delhi-based National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER), of the 230 million tourist trips undertaken in India in 2002-2003 the largest proportion consists of religious pilgrimages. Undertaken by both rural and urban Indians, they outnumber leisure holidays to hill stations, getaways, beaches and even trips to metropolitan cities. As many as 23 million people visited Tirupati/Tirumala, a temple town in southern Andhra Pradesh to catch a glimpse of the deity Lord Balaji. Tirupati's annual list of pilgrims is higher than the total number of travellers visiting Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Kolkata put together. In the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir, 17.2 million devotees trek uphill for 15 km to pay respects to the goddess Vaishno Devi. Like the west who have made efforts backed with the right investment to maintain their spiritual centres, churches, mosques with facilities for the visitors, India too can create magic but practicing effective planning and implementation to improve the spiritual centres. Though religious travel will continue, it is important to improve and enhance destinations by making it tourist - and pilgrim-friendly. According to Balaji V Singh, assistant manager - Bharat Dekho, Cox and Kings, "Earlier people who wanted to travel to religious destinations or other pilgrimage sites used to go on their own, whereas now they are open to the idea of buying a package from a tour operator for the same purpose." Adds Jagdish Maipady, manager, Sachin Travels, "Today pilgrims are also open to the idea of clubbing a leisure or an adventure holiday with spiritual tourism."

Constraints To Growth

There are many reasons for a particular religious site's retarded growth. The most significant reasons are

• Poor infrastructure at the destination
• Lack of information about the site, transportation and accommodation facilities
• Poor service at the hotels
• Direct booking by the client without the help of tour operators
• Lack of private initiative
• Lack of government initiative
• Lack of strategies for development

Though there are a number of hurdles, there have been signs of improvement and change.

New Aspects In Spiritual Tourism

Building A Niche Within The Spiritual Tourism Market

There are some private operators who offer and specialise in selling religious tour packages to specific communities and sects, for example, Jain tours, Gujarati tours. Specialised and custom made packages are fast catching the attending of pilgrims. Customer service is recongised as the key element for the success of any package.

New Age Destinations

Puttaparthi in Andhra Pradesh has become a popular destination. In the area of religious tourism the herd mentality helps in propagating a particular tourist destination. Word of mouth goes a long way in making a religious destination popular.

Value-Added Services

Providing value-added services is very important to establish one's name in the area of selling religious tourism packages. A major development is arranging for the most awaited Darshans and arranging for the tourist to be present for important prayer timings. For instance, a customer wanting to visit Tirupati will preferably select a tour operator that can arrange for this.

Combining Pilgrimage With Leisure And Culture

An important measure to boost religious tourism further would be to club a religious destination with other attractions. Selling day trip attractions within the vicinity of the focal point, the religious place, would give the pilgrims the opportunity to explore new places along with their pilgrimage. For example, Ganpatipule in Maharashtra is famous for its religious significance, but it also known for its pristine beaches. Paithan is popular for its sarees, which is reasonably close to the world famous Ajanta and Ellora caves. Some destinations would have some other specialties such as tribal art forms and cultural specialties that could be part of the religious tourism package.

Experts believe that religious tourism will gain in prominence if religious destinations are not sold in isolation. Some feel it is important to apply the hub and spoke theory to religious destinations.