Religious Tourism in India..

September 27 - World Tourism Day

Travel has been among the sectors hit by the economic slump but some firms are looking to the faithful for a reprieve.Its still a small proportion of the overall organised business since most of it is handled by the informal sector but religious travel is one sector thats on the rise, in contrast with the industry trend.  We have seen a significant growth of 30 % in the religious tourism segment, said Mr. Karan Anand, head of relationships at Cox & Kings.

Executives at travel portals MakeMyTrip and Expedia said their business in this segment has been growing in excess of 25 %.MakeMyTrip expects the share of religious travel to more than double to 5 % of domestic leisure revenue from 2 % last year.

None of the companies gave details on revenue from the segment. As a country that has people of many faiths, religious travel has always been a big business in India but most of it goes to small, local companies.

Radheshyam Travels based in Ahmedabad is one such company. Out of a turnover of.20 crore last year, 70 % came from religious travel, said owner Bhaskar Rao.

The agency has nearly 10,000 religious travel customers every year. Revenue has risen 25 % this year, although travel to the holy places in north India has declined slightly after the July flash floods in Uttarakhand. The travel companies want to get a bigger share of this market. They said religious trips have now grown in significance beyond just pilgrimages. With better infrastructure &  facilities, pilgrimages are transforming into an opportunity for family bonding and members of different age groups often accompany the elderly in these journeys, said Mr. Mohit Gupta, chief business officer, holidays, MakeMyTrip.

 

Travellers aged above 50 years comprise the majority, about  55 % of customers buying a pilgrimage package with MakeMyTrip.But 17 % of travellers buying pilgrimage packages with us are aged between 40 to 50 years.

Younger people are increasingly going on faith-based journeys, said Vikram Malhi, general manager, South and Southeast Asia at Expedia.In addition to the retired senior citizen population that was associated with taking these pilgrimage tours, the young generation has also latched on to these spiritual journeys & more and more youngsters between the age group of 25 to 30 are travelling for pilgrimage tours, Mr. Malhi said.

 

Mr. Gupta said that luxury has been introduced as a factor in pilgrimage tourism with many travellers opting for quality hotels. For our Chardham Yatra packages this year, we tied up with hotels to offer premium/luxury tented accommodation for which we received a very positive response, Mr. Gupta said.

MakeMyTrip offers such premium packages on its Kailash Mansarovar Yatra,and an expanded portfolio for destinations such as Shirdi,Vaishnodevi, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Tirupati, Jagannath Puri and a Buddhism tour, he said.

The firm is planning to introduce similar products for other key pilgrimage destinations, he said. Another trend that the companies have noticed is that people arent necessarily travelling in big groups any more

.Earlier people who wanted to travel to religious destinations had to either find a group to go on their own or / opt to book through travel agents,

Mr. Gupta said.2013 recorded 3.2 average passengers per transaction as compared to 3.7 in 2012.The number of passengers per transaction is reducing, which shows that travellers do not limit their visit to group visits.

All this is also evidence of another shift customers becoming more comfortable with making their bookings online for religious travel.

Src; ET

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