Motivations of urban millennials for spiritual travel in India

ABSTRACT

The understanding of spirituality has come far from the traditional viewpoint of being a subset of religion. Consequently, contemporary spiritual tourism includes a vast realm of experiences to cater to heterogeneous spiritual tourists. Young travellers worldwide are increasingly attracted to spirituality. The research’s principal objective is to determine the factors driving urban millennials in India to travel for spirituality. This objective was achieved through phenomenological analysis of their interviews which renders a meaningful understanding of their travel choices and behaviour. The push factors such as mental morbidities, corporate pressure, or curiosity shape the spiritual tourists’ motivations, which are further manifested in the kind of activities they opt for during their journey. Therefore, the study identifies the prominent push factors and the motivations of the Indian Urban Millennial Spiritual Tourist (UMST). Further, the authors highlight the most desirable traits the spiritual tourists look for in a destination.

KEYWORDS:

• Spirituality
• spiritual travel
• domestic tourism
• tourist motivations
• millennials
• UMST
• Qualitative analysis
• India

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Snigdha Kainthola

Snigdha Kainthola is a doctoral researcher in the Department of Tourism and Hospitality Management, Jamia Millia Islamia. Her core areas for research are spiritual tourism, over tourism, spirituality and tourism.

Nimit Chowdhary

Nimit Chowdhary is a Professor and Head of the Department of Tourism and Hospitality Management at Jamia Millia Islamia. With more than 25 years of experience in academics, he is a recipient of several awards, authored eight books, edited two books and contributed more than 116 papers.

Rahul Pratap Singh Kaurav

Rahul Pratap Singh Kaurav is an Associate Professor at Fortune Institute of International Business (FIIB), New Delhi, India. With more than 12 years of academic experience, he is a prolific writer, edited seven books and contributed more than 40 papers. His areas of interest are tourism marketing, internal marketing, destination performance, and qualitative analysis.

Pinaz Tiwari

Pinaz Tiwari is a research scholar in the Department of Tourism and Hospitality in Jamia Millia Islamia, India. Her interest areas are in tourism marketing, destination management, tourism education, and stakeholders; capacity development.