A decades-long wait for a Ram temple at Lord Rama's birthplace, Ayodhya, has finally come to an end on January 22.?
The Ram Temple is estimated to draw up to 100 million tourists a year, according to American investment bank Jefferies.?To put this in perspective, about 9 million people visit Vatican City in a year and about 20 million visit Mecca.?
Not just in Ayodhya, the federal government has invested for development of other Hindu pilgrimage sites as well. It is expected that temple tourism would help boost overall tourism numbers in India.
After a $6 billion makeover of Ayodhya, "the creation of a new religious tourist centre (Ayodhya) with improved connectivity and infrastructure can create a meaningfully large economic impact", Jeffries stated in a note.?
In fact, the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) is expected to generate a revenue of Rs 4 lakh crore, due to the tourism boost from the new Ram temple.?
Not just the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, but other Hindu pilgrimage sites too have been developed in the past decade.?
Government data shows that the federal government has spent nearly $120 million to develop dozens of Hindu pilgrimage sites in the past decade, and more funding is planned.?
One such site is the Hindu pilgrimage site of Kashi Vishwanath Corridor on the banks of the Ganges which was inaugurated by Modi in 2021 in his constituency of Varanasi.?
Since the inauguration, more than 130 million tourists have visited the area, states government data.?
Varanasi, a well-known temple town also in Uttar Pradesh (U.P.), had a yearly footfall of barely 7 million before that.?
Analysts say tourism income for locals and hotels in Varanasi due to death - since Hindus believe that dying in Varanasi would lead them to attain salvation from the cycle of birth and re-birth - have surged by up to 65%.?
So, temple tourism can definitely enhance India's overall tourism numbers. With nearly $200 billion in revenue, tourism contributes about 7% of India's economy, which is below most large emerging and developed economies by up to 5 percentage points.
For more news and current affairs from around the world, please visit?Indiatimes News.