Two of India’s biggest travel technology platforms - MakeMyTrip and ixigo - in their March quarter earnings have underscored the growing segment of spiritual tourism in India and business gains from the Maha Kumbh early this year which took place after 144 years following a rare celestial alignment.
Pilgrimage cities’ volume growth this fiscal saw over 95 percent year-on-year (YoY) growth, helped by heightened interest around the Maha Kumbh at Prayagraj, said Rajesh Magow, Group CEO and Co-Founder, MakeMyTrip India. The travel portal saw a 147 percent on growth during Q4FY25.
“We saw strong demand from both first-time and repeat travellers seeking culturally rich and spiritually meaningful experiences. Our focused planning and strong execution around the Maha Kumbh delivered an upside in January and February. We stood out as the only player with accommodation inventory during the peak period, particularly on the alternate accommodation side, and the tent offerings which were fully bookable online, driving both visibility and conversion,” Magow said during the Q4FY25 earnings call.
Revenue Driver
Aloke Bajpai, Chairman, Managing Director and Group CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of Ixigo, who attended Maha Kumbh, said the overall impact of the mega spiritual event in Q4FY25 is estimated to be in mid-single digit, in terms of percentage of total GTV (gross transaction value).
“The Maha Kumbh Mela in January and February 2025 saw a surge in searches and bookings for us across our three lines of business. And not just for Prayagraj, but also for nearby towns such as Varanasi, Lucknow, Kanpur, and Ayodhya. These act as feeder routes into Prayagraj. Our bookings to Prayagraj surged 20 times YoY for buses, 5.4x YoY for flights and 4x YoY for trains during this period, reflecting that for categories such as bus, where supply was not constrained like the others, there was a decent spike noticed during the Mela,” said Aloke Bajpai.
What was an eye-opening insight was that Gen Z (those born between 1997 and 2012) and solo travellers were the dominant demographic at the Maha Kumbh, breaking the stereotype of which demographic drives demand for spiritual travel in India.
“On train, solo travellers made up over half the train bookings to Prayagraj and a staggering 50 percent of all visitors to Maha Kumbh across all modes of travel that we saw were under 30 years of age. Having witnessed it myself, I believe that this event was a testament to the true power of spiritual tourism in our country, marking the beginning of a structural multi-year theme," Bajpai said.
Ixigo’s CEO said the event was an eye-opener to many, on the potential of spiritual travel in India, establishing a long-term opportunity to serve this segment.
The Maha Kumbh 2025 drew 662.1 million visits, according to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
Rajnish Kumar, Director and Group Co-CEO of Ixigo said domestically, there is a strong surge in spiritual travel to destinations like Prayagraj and Ayodhya, reflecting both evolving aspirations and deeper cultural exploration.
Sharing similar sentiment, Magow said that spiritual tourism is emerging as a significant growth driver within India’s domestic travel landscape.
Religious tourism has the potential to generate $150-200 billion in 3-4 years, according to hospitality chain OYO's founder Ritesh Agarwal, who calls himself a religious travel influencer.
For OYO, around 20 percent of its revenue comes from religious destinations.
“The top two destinations are Banaras and Tirupati. They are the best performing markets in India. Even today, lakhs of people come to Tirupati daily and it is disproportionately more during school holidays," Agarwal had said at an event earlier this year, adding that more than 5 lakh people stayed at OYO properties during the Kumbh in Prayagraj.
Hotel Expansion
In January, Ritesh Agarwal had announced plans to add 500 hotels at major religious centres across India to support the government's program to boost spiritual tourism in the country. The chain will expand in Ayodhya, Varanasi, Prayagraj, Puri, Haridwar, Mathura, Vrindavan, Amritsar, Ujjain, Ajmer, nasik and Tirupati, starting with 100 hotels in Varanasi, followed by 50 hotels each in Prayagraj, Haridwar and Puri.
Agarwal said in January that the booking requests for the Maha Kumbh period were already twice the available inventory of OYO in Prayagraj. He also said that Ayodhya has gained significant traction as the most-searched religious destination for New Year holidays in 2025, with searches on the app recording a 39 percent YoY growth. The company plans to add 150 hotels in Ayodhya.
Spiritual Spike
The ongoing Char Dham Yatra - which started on April 30 - is also attracting millions of tourists with Uttarakhand Tourism Department confirming over 32 lakh registrations out of which 12.8 lakh have completed their visit. The state also saw on May 23 its highest single-day pilgrim footfall for this season’s Yatra, with 67,172 devotees.
Spiritual tourism makes up nearly 60 percent of domestic tourism, according to a recent KPMG report on the growth of pilgrimage and spiritual tourism in India.
According to data from the Ministry of Tourism, religious travel is expected to create 140 million temporary and permanent jobs by 2030.
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