Use of Social Media by Tourists at Religious Tourism Destinations in India

Introduction

Religious places are among the most ancient of travel destinations such as holy shrines, temples, rivers, and other sacred sites. This has become a new stem of the tourism industry, and become a preferred form of travel throughout the globe since time immemorial (Rodrige, 2012). The areas covered by the form of tourism not just limited to visits to the sacred places, but also encompass all kinds of travel that are motivated by traveling to perform pilgrimage, attending religious meetings or discourses, and traveling to participate in religious fairs and festivals (Chattopadhyay, 2006).

Taking into account of these discussions, more than 300 million people have been traveling to religious visits every year (UNWTO, 2011). Religious tourism has assumed an increasing significance in a country like India where cultural, religious, and spiritual diversity prevalent and people give utmost importance to visit sacred places (Jha, 1978). Religious tourism places in India are spread throughout the breadth and width of the country and major destination includes Badrinath in Uttarakhand, Dwarika in Gujarat, Puri in Odhisha and Rameshwaram in Tamilnadu, Kumbha fair destinations, Golden Temple in Amritsar, Bodh Gaya in Bihar, Mount Abu in Rajasthan, Ajmer Sharif (Rajasthan) and churches of Basilica of Bom Jesus and Se Cathedral in Goa (Poddar, Goswami & Shastri, 1951). In a survey more than 100 million tourists were noticed for religious and pilgrimage purposes with eight out of the top ten destinations of the country being religious tourism sites (Koldowski & Martin, 2008).

This growing phenomenon of religious tourism also gave birth to increasing demands and expectations among tourists regarding better products and services. This paradigm shift forced concerned stakeholders to come up with suitable strategies to successfully market the destination for increasing survival and revenue generation at the destination (Rinsched, 1992; Sharma, 2010). The infrastructural development such as information & communication technology and computerized reservation system (CRS) marched the growth of religious tourism in the country (Sharma, 2010). Moreover inventions of internet facilities have further added new dimensions to the marketing of religious tourist places (Eck, 2012). This paradigm shift has influenced the way destination lanners market their products and services and consumption of facilities and services by tourists. Therefore, the marketing of religious destinations through the application of digital platforms such as the internet, website, and electronic media is required for transforming the business of tourism (Jauhari & Sanjeev, 2010; Kumar & Singh, 2015).

The emerging technology-based marketing especially ‘social media’ that appeared after the developments in Internet technology are thought to be useful tools in the field of tourism and hospitality. The use of social media is directly related to the purchase of decisions of present and potential tourism consumers. This relationship can be used as an efficient support in promoting and marketing of destinations in the religious tourism industry. The travelers during religious visits also used to share their past travel experiences with friends and relatives on social media. This tool can be increasingly used for travel plans of others, from choosing destinations to hotels and restaurants (Yesil, 2013). Hence, it is important to examine the impact of social media on religious tourism destinations from the perspective of its different stakeholders including tourists and service providers and destination planners.

This brings to notice that, despite the increasing role of social media in religious tourism, the research area remains unexplored. Moreover, there is no particular attention has been given by researchers for getting insights on these aspects about a specific type of topic related to its effect on religious tourism. The present chapter considers this research gap and critically assesses the relationship between religious tourism and social media. To begin with, the chapter evaluates the way tourists are using social media platforms for making their travel arrangements. Similarly, whereas tourism businesses adopt social media to enhance their marketing activities, from this point of view, this study evaluates the factors that contribute to reliance on social media when engaged in travel research and planning.