Kahini Chakraborty – Mumbai
With spiritual tourism known to be one of the oldest and biggest tourism segments in India, it is gradually making its way into the young minds and proving to be an escape from their stressful daily routine. The industry has been pegged as an approximately Rs 12,000 crore market and is expanding at 13 per cent per annum. Sarita Nair, founder, Spiritual Yatra informed, “Our Karmic Voyage Kumbh Mela tour has acquired 60 per cent inquiries from the age group between 22-35 years. While spiritual tourism was considered only for travellers who wanted to attain moksh, or several other myths making rounds, today the youth of India is inspired by our spiritual heritage and is keen on exploring more of it.”
The company was formed after a research of two years by the team who have explored 750 spiritual destinations across India. This also includes several untapped places of interest of various communities. This includes places like Ganga Sagar (West Bengal), Bihari Ji Darshan, Ranakpur Temple (Rajasthan), Hemkund Sahib (Uttarakhand), Velankanni Church (Tamil Nadu), Dwarka (Gujarat), Vrindavan (Uttar Pradesh) and more.
“Spiritual Yatra will also be conducting special guided tours on massive spiritual events of the country like Kumbh Mela, Pushkar Mela, Jagannath Yatra, Durga Puja, Krishna Janmashthami at Vrindavan,” she added.
Talking about the response from travellers for the recently conducted tours for Maha Kumbh Mela, Nair said, “We have received a good response for Karmic Voyage having around more than 300 bookings as of now. The bookings are still open and we are still receiving bookings with the numbers expected to increase more than we expected. About seven crore people were estimated to visit the Mela in two months time.”
For the upcoming Ganesh Chaturthi festival, the company is going to be introducing new tours for the locals and Pune Ganesh Mandal Darshan for devotees. With festivities round the corner, the company is working on offering special tours for Durga Puja, Diwali and Char Dham Yatra.