Spiritual Tourism on a high in India

Indians love to spend on travel and spiritual tourism is one which is gaining attention in the country. Reports indicate a considerable growth in spiritual tourism as many Indians love visiting popular pilgrimage sites like Puri, Varanasi, Tirupati etc. The reports are based on the hotel searched and booking made at travel search engine Ixigo.

The results show that the hotel bookings at pilgrimage sites are going up every month. Hotel bookings in Puri have gone up by 60 per cent, Varanasi by 48 per cent, Shirdi by 19 per cent and Tirupati by 19 per cent.  Lucknow leads the list with 13 per cent of outbound train searches to these pilgrimage sites, succeeded by Mumbai with 7 per cent, Hyderabad with 6 per cent and Delhi with 5 per cent.

According to Aloke Bajpai, CEO and Co-Founder of Ixigo, spiritual tourism is one of the most unexplored for domestic travel. “Looking at the spike in hotel bookings, we can say that spiritual travel is now being considered as one of the offbeat travel trends in India. Close to 60 per cent domestic tourism in India is religion-based. To support this upcoming trend, the government has allocated special budgets for creating infrastructure around religious places. New projects, circuits and train routes are being established to increase tourism at these pilgrimages,” he said.