Religious Tourism within India
Religious tourism holds the key to India’s effort to augment flow of foreign tourists in the country and the key is to facilitate domestic travelling and to double inbound and domestic arrivals during the 12th Plan Period.
Experts, at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Roundtable on Pilgrimage Tourism held recently in New Delhi, brainstormed on various possibilities that domestic and inbound pilgrimage travel have to offer the tourism sector in India. Here, Arjun Sharma, Co-chairman, CII National Committee on Tourism set the stage by highlighting the possibilities to extend pilgrimage travel options in domestic and various source markets.
“Our experience shows that there are untapped opportunities in various source markets in terms of marketing pilgrimage products. The demand dynamics are such that for Buddhismcentric products, we had received a good response in Latin American markets as well,” said Sharma.
“We also need to stress on the need for strengthening infrastructure, enhancing connectivity and mapping of tourist destinations,” he added.
Parvez Dewan, Secretary, Ministry of Tourism shared his observation that faith tourism is ‘recession-proof’. “We need to have a proactive approach for developing these centres, besides being sensitive to the needs of people who are visiting these centres. For instance, the hotels set up in and around Jain religious centres should address the sentimental values and food habits of the visiting populace,” said Dewan.
The Secretary said that a Jewish pilgrimage centre would be opened up in one of the hub-cities like Kochi, where at one point of time a number of Jews had lived and later migrated to other countries.
Further, dwelling on the importance of Sufi tourism in the country, Dewan opined that there are 22 Sufi centres in the country that can be inter- connected. He also talked about the strengthening of the connectivity of Chennai with pilgrimage centres in the North, primarily to cater to the needs of Buddhist pilgrims from Sri Lanka. Similar plans are afoot for promoting pilgrimage tourism from ASEAN countries to Buddhist centres, he added.
Also on the panel, Rakesh Tandon, Managing Director, IRCTC exhorted the tourism sector to make use of the 8,000 railway stations across the country for promoting religious tourism. He also explained the Railways’ plans to connect various religious centres in the future, such as expanding the network of Bharat Darshan trains from various centres. Muzaffar Ali, filmmaker, underscored the need for making people aware of the inner meaning and philosophy of Sufism, since it could be an effective platform for promoting religious tourism.