Pragmatic pilgrims driving leisure travel in India: OYO

India’s thriving religious tourism sector is helping grow leisure travel while people are increasingly starting to club other activities with their visit to sites of religious prominence.

OYO, India’s largest hotel aggregator, surveyed 1,700 people across 11 major cities to find that 65 per cent respondents visited religious sites for reasons beyond spirituality or religion. These “pragmatic pilgrims” as the company calls them are mostly young and highly tech savvy.

Shopping, visiting nearby tourist attractions, adventure sports and consuming local cuisine ranked high in the list of things to do when travelling to a spot of religious prominence.

Moreover, the study found that people’s travel to religious destinations is becoming more impulsive, with over 55 per cent of respondents agreeing to this.

“Travel to religious destinations is among the largest segment of domestic travel business. In the last few years, these destinations have seen a resurgence, particularly as young people visit them for the range of experiences they offer — such as, arts and craft in Pushkar, rafting adventures in Rishikesh, culinary delights of Amritsar,” said Ritesh Agarwal, founder and CEO at OYO.

The biggest challenge for both travellers and service providers, the company says, is fragmentation, primarily due to lack of infrastructure and standardisation. This fits right into the problem OYO says it is trying to solve by offering standardised economy rooms at the thousands of hotels that have become its partners.

The survey found that Wi-Fi and mobile connectivity were becoming important factors when these pilgrims were deciding on their accommodation, while cleanliness and comfort topped the list of considerations. OYO partners provide free Wi-Fi and cleanliness, which has been one of the biggest pitches of the company since its launch in 2011.

Apart from plugging its own services, OYO’s survey shows that travellers, even the ones going on pilgrimages, are increasingly connected, with 60 per cent of the respondents admitting that they updated their social media at least once a day when travelling. This could also imply that a majority of them research about a spot and book accommodation online prior to their travel.

Another key finding of the OYO survey is that 56 per cent of the respondents travelled over short weekend breaks as the duration of their pilgrimage was just one or two days. Sixty-two per cent also said their chances of planning a spontaneous visit to a religious spot over the next one year was high.