{"id":4058,"date":"2004-03-18T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2004-03-18T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2004\/03\/18\/2004-03-18-religious-tourism-in-india-becoming-lucrative\/"},"modified":"2004-03-18T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2004-03-18T12:00:00","slug":"2004-03-18-religious-tourism-in-india-becoming-lucrative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2004\/03\/18\/2004-03-18-religious-tourism-in-india-becoming-lucrative\/","title":{"rendered":"Religious Tourism in India Becoming Lucrative"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a HREF=\"http:\/\/www.hindustantimes.com\/2004\/Mar\/14\/printedition\/140304\/detECO01.shtml\">Source<\/a><\/P><P>MUMBAI, INDIA, March 13, 2004: International media coverage and the celebrities descending on the 2001 Kumbh Mela in Allahabad for their holy dip marked a new opportunity for religious travel tours. Religious tourism, until lately the domain of small-time tour operators, is fast turning into a lucrative market for travel companies. A visit to Vaishnodevi, for example, which attracts more than 4.5 million pilgrims every year, need not mean rickety buses or eating at road-side dhabas anymore as travel companies have moved big-time into organizing religious tours. Says Ajay Seth, general manager of the Bharat Dekho division, Cox and Kings, &#8220;We went into it in a major way during the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad in 2001. The main target then was the international media and foreign tourists. We provided deluxe accommodation for them &#8212; tents with plush interiors. The religious tourism sector is expected to grow by almost 25 percent this year.&#8221; Seth adds that more and more people are looking at pilgrimage trips, not from a religious angle but as a spiritual break from their stressful lives. &#8220;Another reason for the popularity of religious tourism is the fact that the entire family can visit these places.&#8221; &#8220;As of now, we are targeting upmarket Indians and overseas tourists for whom safety, comfort and luxury are top priorities, adds Seth.&#8221;<BR><br \/>\n<\/P> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SourceMUMBAI, INDIA, March 13, 2004: International media coverage and the celebrities descending on the 2001 Kumbh Mela in Allahabad for,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4058\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}