The New Indian Express ·
Spiritual tourism enters premium era, emerges as formal industry: Thomas Cook EVP at TNIE Tourism Summit
CHENNAI: Spiritual tourism in India is moving from traditional mass pilgrimage towards premium, professionally managed travel, with better connectivity, hospitality and organised services reshaping the sector, Neeraj Singh Dev, Executive Vice President, Thomas Cook, said at the TNIE Tourism Summit 2026.
Speaking at a session titled ‘Pilgrims’ Progress - Building the Religion Circuit’, Dev said the traditional idea of pilgrimage as a journey involving hardship was changing. “What we are seeing in the last 10 years is the phenomenon of premiumisation of spiritual travel in India,” he said.
He pointed to the growing popularity of helicopter pilgrimages, luxury hotels and curated experiences around religious destinations. “10 years back, only the VIPs would come and land on helicopters in these places. Today, if you pay a premium price, if you are willing to pay for that service, you are able to get that service,” he said.
The growth, he added, is making spiritual tourism formal and structured. “Indian spiritual tourism is taking shape of an industry, and a lot of the ingredients of this industry are getting formalised and professional,” he said, pointing to the emergence of MBA courses in temple management covering areas such as crowd management, queue management, revenue management and e-commerce.
Improved infrastructure is driving spending around pilgrimage destinations. Citing Amritsar, Dev said tourist spending had risen from Rs 450 per person a decade ago to more than Rs 2,000 as hotels and connectivity improved. “One temple can create the entire economy of that city. I think that is the key,” he said.
The hospitality sector is responding to the shift, with Dev noting that 35-40 per cent of new hotel launches by major chains are around spiritual cities. Rishikesh, Katra and Varanasi, among others, have seen growing investment.
For travel operators, the biggest change has been the ability to offer predictable services. “When the industry changed from dependence to 100 per cent predictable outcome, that's when a brand like Thomas Cook entered into this segment,” he said. This, he added, requires coordination with temple management and local authorities, along with trained tour managers and stronger safety arrangements.
