Religious Tourism: The Indian Travel Industry’s Next Big Bet

Picture this: A sea of 50 million people, all accumulated in an area of 4,000 hectares for one purpose – to celebrate the holy Hindu gathering of Mahakumbh 2025. In its 45-day run, the once-in-144-years festival was visited by over 660 million devotees, well above projections for 400 million. 

For 24-year-old Kaustubh Kambiri, the trip to Mahakumbh was an opportunity to visit the historic festival, as well as explore the diverse culture that finds its roots in the Indian hinterlands. 

Kambiri went to Prayagraj for the festival and combined it with visits to Lucknow, Varanasi, and Ayodhya. 

“I met people from all walks of life during the visit to Mahakumbh, and then at the Kashi Vishwanath Temple, and Ram Temple in Ayodhya. It was a great way to get a glimpse into the diversity within India, a truly immersive travel experience that went beyond just spirituality." 

Mahakumbh is just one example of a trend that has emerged as a key force in India’s travel industry, and hotels, airlines, and online travel agencies are all taking note. 

Consider some of the opportunities: 

• India is the third-largest source of non-domestic travel for Saudi Arabia’s Hajj pilgrimage after Indonesia and Pakistan, according to Statista. 
• Within India, there are many religious sites for Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Muslims, and Christians. 
• In 2024, 512,000 devotees went on the annual Amarnath Yatra trek to the Hindu shrine of Amarnath Temple in Jammu and Kashmir, the highest in the past 12 years, according to Indian home minister Amit Shah. 
• The Sikh religious site of the Golden Temple in Amritsar is visited by about 100,000 devotees every day. 
• The Ajmer Dargah Sharif is considered to be among the holiest Muslim shrines in India. An estimated 30,000 pilgrims visit the shrine every day. The Tirupati Balaji Temple in Andhra Pradesh is visited by an average of 70,000 Hindu devotees a day.
• Last year, Goa held the exposition of the relics of St Francis Xavier for public viewing, an event that comes every 10 years and an important one for Catholics across the globe. Over 45 days, there were more than 8 million visitors, according to Goa daily Gomantak Times. 

What’s more, the trend spans generations, as data for the Mahakumbh from online travel agency Ixigo shows. “Notably, young travellers aged 20-25 make up 26% of total bus bookings, surpassing older age groups,” Ixigo Group CEO Aloke Bajpai told Skift. Travellers aged between 28-43 years made up 31% of the total train bookings made to Prayagraj.

Big Business’ Biggest Beneficiaries

Religious tourism in India has surged in recent years and it accounts for over 60% of domestic travel in the country, according to a report from KPMG. According to real estate services firm Colliers, spiritual tourism holds a 30% market share in the country's overall travel and tourism sector.

According to a report last May by the government of India’s industry research body, India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF), the spiritual tourism segment in India is expected to be valued at $59 billion by 2028. “By 2030, more than 100 million people will be gainfully employed through temporary and permanent jobs driven by India’s spiritual tourism alone,” IBEF added. 

A report by Colliers identified seven hubs for religious tourism: Amritsar in Punjab; Ayodhya and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh; Dwarka in Gujarat; Puri in Odisha; Shirdi in Maharashtra; and Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh. 

Travel industry players are moving to capitalize on this trend. Indian Hotels Company (IHCL) has signed four properties each in Varanasi and Ayodhya across different brands including its flagship luxury offering Taj, budget brand Ginger, and its reimagined Gateway brand. 

In IHCL’s latest earnings call, Managing Director and CEO Puneet Chhatwal said that along with concerts and extended wedding season, the Mahakumbh gathering was expected to drive profitability for the company during the ongoing quarter. 

The IBEF report said that IHCL had 66 hotels either operational or under development in spiritual destinations, and it also intends to expand its portfolio in these areas further. 

For online travel company MakeMyTrip, spiritual tourism has emerged as a growth driver. “Pilgrimage travel happens year-round. There’s no season for it,” MakeMyTrip Co-founder, Group CEO and Director, Rajesh Magow said in the company’s most recent earnings call. Searches for religious destinations on its platform increased by 46% in 2024 compared to 2022, he told Skift. 

“Destinations like Ayodhya, Varanasi, and Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh have led this growth, with searches rising by over 60% in 2024 as compared from 2023, while others like Ujjain, Dwarka, Katra, Guruvayoor, and Amarnath have also recorded consistent double-digit growth. In the October-December quarter in the ongoing fiscal, pilgrimage destinations accounted for over 10% of our total room nights sold on the platform.”

Indian hotel chain Sarovar Hotels signed a new hotel in Nepal at the beginning of the year. The country is a popular destination for religious tourism and India is its biggest source market. India accounted for close to 27% of the visitors to Lumbini in 2023. 

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The aviation industry is also following spiritual travelers. Last year, as the Ram Temple in Ayodhya was consecrated, Air India Express, IndiGo, and SpiceJet all commenced operations to the city. 

Bodh Gaya, the spiritual destination where Lord Buddha is believed to have achieved enlightenment, is also a major attraction for inbound tourism. Last year, Air Asia and Thai Airways announced flight schedules from Thailand to Bodh Gaya in October, while Bhutan Airlines and Drukair commenced flights from Bhutan. 

Two Myanmar-based airlines also announced flights for the 2024-25 tourist season. Meanwhile, charter flights from Hanoi in Vietnam were operated to the Bodh Gaya airport. 

According to official data from the state government of Uttar Pradesh, over 164 million tourists visited Ayodhya, a three-fold increase compared to 2023. Meanwhile, the religious sites of Varanasi and Mathura were visited by 110 million and 90 million visitors, respectively. 

In the run up to the Mahakumbh, 81 new flights were started to Prayagraj to accommodate the incoming devotees. In December 2024, Prayagraj had direct connectivity to 8 cities, which has now increased to 17 cities. 

In 2024, religious travel in India witnessed a steady growth of 30-40% month-on-month, according to online travel company Ixigo. Spiritual tourism also boosted the company’s earnings in the October-December quarter in 2024, as it noted that bookings to spiritual destinations such as Varanasi, Gaya, Shirdi, Puri, Haridwar, and Vaishno Devi were up 100-150% year-on-year. 

Infrastructure Development 

Despite the huge potential and a significant revenue, religious tourism sites are not very tourist friendly. Most of these sites are historical, and the neighboring locality is not adapted for major tourist influx, leading to overcrowding and lack of cleanliness. 

Even the Mahakumbh, for instance, lacked adequate measures for the elderly or differently abled visitors, even as most other tourist amenities were in place. 

In order to boost this segment, the Indian government has been investing in infrastructure development, with private players also innovating. 

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The government launched Pilgrimage Rejuvenation And Spiritual Augmentation Drive (PRASAD) scheme in 2014 with the focus on developing and identifying pilgrimage sites across India for enriching the religious tourism experience. Since then, a total of 46 projects under the scheme have been sanctioned across the country for a total approved cost of over INR 16 billion ($185 million). As of November last year, 23 of these projects were completed, according to an update from the ministry of tourism. 

The temple towns of Varanasi and Ujjain were also revamped to improve tourist experience. After the development of the Kashi-Vishwanath corridor in Varanasi completed in December 2021, a total of 130 million pilgrims visited the pilgrim city in 2022 and 2023. It is also planning to implement the same model in Mathura soon. 

Funds have also been allocated for developing key Buddhist religious sites. While announcing the Union Budget last year, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said India will develop two temple destinations in Bihar, one of which is the Mahabodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya, where Lord Buddha is said to have achieved enlightenment.

This year, Sitharaman said that India will prioritize tourism related to the life and times of Lord Buddha, a revered deity in the nearby Southeast Asian countries. These efforts can help boost inbound tourism. In 2023, the birthplace of Gautam Buddha, Lumbini in Nepal, alone received close to 1 million tourists, including Nepal nationals.

In 2021, Lord Buddha’s place of death Kushinagar also got an international airport to facilitate global tourism from devotees to the city. 

The Role of Tech in Religious Tourism

Private players are also introducing different features to cater to this market. 

Temple Connect (India), a private initiative that offers postgraduate diplomas in temple management, also held the second International Temples Convention and Expo (ITCX) in February. The expo aimed to discuss critical issues around temple tourism, including safety, security and surveillance protocols, disaster management, sanitation and hygiene, and integration of more than 75 high-tech innovations in the temple and faith tech space.

MakeMyTrip has introduced features for its accommodation booking platform designed to improve accessibility and convenience for travelers visiting spiritual hubs called "Loved by Devotees." The curated collection of more than 450 hotels and homestays includes wheelchair-friendly accommodations, proximity filters for religious sites, and vegetarian meal options. 

Ixigo launched a dedicated microsite for Mahakumbh to help travelers plan their visits. The website provided information on logistics, rituals, key events, and activities to easily navigate the festival. “It enabled devotees to book hotels, tents, flights, trains, and buses all in one place. Powered by our AI-driven trip planning tool PLAN, the website also offered personalized itineraries tailored to different preferences, including heritage walks, family-friendly activities, and photogenic spots,” Bajpai said.

These sites are also integrating technology to transform how pilgrims access information about the sites, the KPMG report said. While travel bloggers are playing an important role in helping devotees discover new sites, post-Covid, virtual pilgrimages of these sites have also surged in the form of live streaming of religious ceremonies, online viewing of deities, and 360-degree virtual tours.

The interest of youth in spiritual tourism is leading to a diversified approach of including preservation of these sites, education programs, and immersive cultural experiences to the concept of religious tourism. 

The younger population, in its quest for experiences, exploration and immersion, is realizing the role spiritual places are playing in showcasing Indian diversity. As the 24-year-old Kambiri puts it, “If we can find people and speak to them to understand local lives when visiting mountains and other tourist places, why can't we do this at religious places and also learn about our own roots and culture at the same time?”

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