Religious tourism has emerged as a booming market in India, according to the Delhi based National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER) which shows that of the 230 million tourist trips undertaken in India, the largest proportion is made up of religious pilgrimages. Undertaken by both rural and urban Indians, they outnumber leisure holidays in hill stations, getaways to sea beaches and even trips to metropolitan cities.

As many as 23 million people visited Tirupati, a temple town near the southern tip of India to catch a glimpse of a deity known as Lord Balaji. Tirupati’s annual list of pilgrims is higher than the total number of travellers visiting Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Kolkata put together. In the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir 17.2 million devotees trek uphill for 15 km to pay respects to a female goddess called Vaishno Devi.