FEATURE
In the fifty years or so after independence Indians have mainly associated travel with religious tourism—making long and arduous treks to visit holy shrines such as the cave temple in Jammu called Vaishnodevi or to Dargah’s at Sufi shrines in places like Ajmer.
In fact, perhaps the biggest and most spectacular example of mass religious tourism occurred when anywhere between 30 to 70 million or so Indians voyaged to the banks of the Ganges near the city of Allahabad for the Maha Kumbh Mela in 2013. Most of these were from villages and small towns across India with no disposable income to spend on fripperies such as hotels or guest-houses.
Full report here ZDNet
