CHARACTERISTICS OF RELIGIOUS TOURIS

As in other categories of tourism, there are also wide variations in the practices of religious tourism. For example, within same religion there are perceptions related to high or low value related to religious travels. Among Hindus visit to Kailash Sarovar is of highest value and visit to Amarnath is of great value whereas visit to Badrinath, Kedarnath is of some value. Therefore, within the percept of each religion is a range of religious travel. Some are believed to be more significant and rewarding from spirituality point of view than others (Eickelman and Piscaton, 1990).

From this one thing it becomes clear that religious tourism is spiritually purposive. With the objective of attaining one or more of the below stated purposes of the travel, viz.:

a) To perform pilgrimage as an act of worship: It is a widely acknowledged fact that majority of the religious travel  is an act of worship and salvation barring Muslim and Jews who perform their religious travel to Mecca (Haj) and Jerusalem, respectively as conditionally obligatory. In both the religions, belief goes that all healthy and financially capable of undertaking such travel must visit the holy shrine at least once in their life time.

b) To express gratitude, confess sin and to perform a vow: Everyone of us face such crises in our life when we are not able to resolve our problems through worldly means, most of us tur n to divine help. A visit to sacred site devoted to god/goddess we believe in, to facilitate communication with the ruling deity of the shrine for such help. Here believers confess and express their gratitude as well as declare new resolutions for a more blessed life in the future.

c) To achieve social and spiritual salvation: Socially, taking religious trips is a mark of piety which carries significance in almost all societies. Most particularly among Hindus a visit to holy places is one of the means for accumulating religious merits whereas among Buddhists it is considered to be the first stop towards enlightenment. Another aspect related to their characteristic is this that among all religions it is common to find older members performing pilgrimage as a stage of retiring from social life and as a mark of final departure from this world.

d) To commemorate and celebrate certain religious events: Every religion has myths and rituals associated with certain events that are regarded as sacred among the believers. For example, when Lord Ram returned to Ayodhya, when Lord Krishna was born, when Christ was reborn, when Prophet Mohammad was born or died all these events are carefully documented in our mythologies or other 74 sacred tenets such events are re-enacted during religious festivities to commemorate these events. Over the years, of course, a new colour has been added to these events.

e) To be in communication with co-religionists: This motivation/purpose of religious travel is applied on most of the religious meetings which can be missionary or religious visits (pilgrimages). In fact, in all modern religions/religious beliefs one of the most expressed purposes of pilgrimage is to provide an occasion for social gathering of fellow believers.