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Published on : Tuesday, September 1, 2020
When it comes to planned travel, religious tourism is one of the oldest forms and till today, this genre of travel remains a huge industry.
Almost 300 to 330 million tourists visit the most popular religious sites of the world each year, as per a 2017 estimate. About 600 million national and foreign trips under religious tourism are made all over the world, churning out almost US $18 billion and contributing into the global revenue. It makes up a large piece of a tourism sector in general that has been majorly impacted by the virus outbreak, with 63.8 percent of travelers cancelling their proposed travel plans due to it.
As the pandemic became global, governments worldwide instantly shut down their sacred sites and banned religious travel, temporarily.
It has impacted famous destinations of all religions. Jerusalem, Vatican City and Mecca, attracting millions of Jewish, Christian and Muslim visitors every year are among the most badly affected places in the world.
Similarly, Nepal’s Lumbini Temple, a famous Buddhist site and India’s Mahabodhi Temple, along with the Hindu temple of Kashi Vishwanath, have witnessed a major drop in visitor numbers. This has had enormous economic implications for the host countries.
On 2019, for instance, about 2.5 million Muslims from all over world performed the hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam, with nearly 2 million coming from outside of Saudi Arabia.
In 2020, only 10,000 people were hoped to do the pilgrimage while abiding social distancing measures.
The Saudi Kingdom typically makes a profit of $12 billion every year from the hajj and the Umrah – a minor pilgrimage that can be done anytime during the year.
These pilgrimages help in diversifying the economy from being entirely dependent on oil. Year-round religious visits contribute to 20 percent of the nonoil GDP of the kingdom and around 7 percent of the total GDP.
Tags: planned travel, religious tourism