Varanasi, India – In India, some Gen Zers prefer temples to nightclubs.
Shivam Dwivedi, a native of Prayagraj district in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, prays at a temple in the neighborhood at least twice a week.
The 19-year-old and his friends have avoided trips to the beach and party destinations popular with this age group. Instead, Dwivedi and his friends Saurabh Shukla, 21, and Anand Dwivedi, 20, prefer to visit important Hindu shrines, some in remote corners of the country.
The friends, who study engineering, told Al Jazeera that they achieve mental peace and find a “source of energy” on their trips to religious sites.
“We feel a connection with the divine. … There is a source of energy flowing within us that gives us mental peace as the pressure of education and career building often becomes too hectic to handle,” Shukla told Al Jazeera while standing in line next to outside the Kashi Vishwanath Temple in the holy city of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh.
Parties and dazzling nightlife do not attract them, added Shivam Dwivedi. “We never planned to visit Goa and other places where people only go for violent parties, casinos and nightlife. We want the peace and positivity that is available in religious places and in nature,” he explained.
Religious holidays account for 60% of India’s domestic tourism, according to a March report from real estate consultancy CBRE South Asia Pvt Ltd.
The industry is estimated to grow at a compound annual rate of 16.2% and will likely reach $4.6 billion in size by 2033, according to the report.
Some of this business is being driven by members of Generation Z (those born between 1997 and 2012).
The consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya in January and coverage of the event on social media and social media helped spark interest.
Giresh Vasudev Kulkarni, founder of Temple Connect, a company that provides information about Hindu temples to global pilgrims, said widespread use of social media coupled with curiosity among the youth has helped lead to a rise in spiritual tourism in the country.
“The young generation is completely connected to social networks, where people create content reaching even places that were considered distant and remote until a few years ago. These contents, when posted on YouTube and other social media platforms, generate curiosity among people, especially young people, to visit them to make similar content or offer prayers,” Kulkarni explained.
Santosh Singh, founder of Spiritual Tour, a Varanasi-based company that offers tours to religious sites, highlighted that the opening of the Ram temple in Ayodhya was a major breakthrough in the rise of spiritual tourism.
New roads connecting Varanasi and Ayodhya, both cities in Uttar Pradesh, have reduced travel time from six to four hours, he said.
Pilgrims have also traveled to Sarnath, about 10 km (6 miles) northeast of Varanasi. It is considered the place where Gautama Buddha gave his first sermon after attaining enlightenment.
“Since January, we are witnessing 60 to 70 percent growth in business,” Singh told Al Jazeera. “Earlier, there used to be an off-season between April and September, but now there is a huge rush, and as many as 2,000 hotels in Varanasi are finding it difficult to accommodate the increased crowds,” Singh said.
In April alone, Varanasi received around 8.2 million visitors, according to RK Rawat, deputy director of tourism, Varanasi and Vidyanchal division. And about 150,000 visitors, on an average, visit the Ram temple a day since it opened to the public, state chief minister Yogi Adityanath told local media.
Government efforts
In 2015, the federal government introduced a scheme called Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual Heritage Enhancement Campaign, or PRASHAD, which in Hindi means food offered to the gods. Under this scheme, it spent 16.3 billion rupees ($195.43 million) to develop infrastructure around 73 religious sites.
It has also introduced high-speed trains connecting some of these places with other major cities and proposed international airports in cities like Ayodhya and Puri, facilitating access for foreign tourists. It also offers interest-free loans to states to open malls and showcase their exclusive products.
State governments have also played an important role in attracting more tourists to important sanctuaries.
In January, the Odisha government opened a 75-meter (250-foot) walkway that it built around the outer walls of the Jagannath Temple in Puri, which it developed with an investment of 8 billion rupees ($96 million). Its air-conditioned sections as well as drinking water and toilet facilities are a welcome escape for devotees from the scorching heat and humidity while waiting in line to enter the temple.
“The corridor has led to an increase in tourists… because the passage is chaos-free,” said Jatin Panda, senior security administrator at the Shree Jagannath Temple Office, which manages the temple’s affairs.
“We are also witnessing an increase in the number of teenage and young visitors visiting the temple post-COVID. Earlier, we used to have 10 youth visitors out of every 100 who came to the temple, but now the number has increased to at least 40 youths among the same number. May be linked to increased belief in divinity [or] post-pandemic job insecurity,” he said, pointing to the 10.47 million tourists in Puri in 2022, the latest data available, up from 10.35 million tourists in 2018.
Expanding business
The rise of spiritual tourism has been profitable for related sectors, including hospitality and retail, which are jumping on the trend with wellness packages including yoga retreats, meditation centers, and food and shopping around. of these themes.
The CBRE report identified 14 Indian cities – including Amritsar, Ajmer, Varanasi, Ayodhya and Puri – as key cities witnessing this boom.
“The rapid expansion of spiritual tourism in India is driving the growth of the country’s religious tourism market,” said Anshuman Magazine, President and CEO, CBRE India.
Debasis Kumar, vice-president of the Puri Hotel Association, told Al Jazeera that the average occupancy of hotels in the city has increased from 70% in the pre-pandemic era to 90% now.
“Puri has the unique advantage of having a temple and a sea beach that attracts the younger generation,” Kumar said.
“It is difficult to find quality labor [to keep up with the tourist influx], and layoffs during COVID have haunted the industry. We are also noticing young people booking hotel rooms, and most of them also drive alone to get here and spend time at the temple. The chaos-free corridor attracts the younger generation.”
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
