Salvation without sacrifice

TOURISM

Pilgrimage destinations in India are attracting investment in regular comfort-assuring hotels.

Pilgrimage planning has never been easy. The prospect of accommodation, somehow, springs to mind a series of stoic choices that would have you rough it out as part of your devotional duty "" a spartan yatri niwas, if not a bare-boned dharamshala.

For those who prefer to subject their souls rather than bodies to the devotional endeavour, there is reason to rejoice: India's hospitality industry is moving in with all its comforts.

Leisure Hotels, with a dominant presence in Uttaranchal, which boasts of convenient sin-relief opportunities through quick Ganga dips in Rishikesh and Hardwar, is making the most of the state's projection of itself as "Devbhumi" (Land of Lords).

"Religious destinations see 80 per cent of domestic traffic and 20 per cent of foreign traffic," according to Pradeep Kalra, vice-president, sales and marketing, Sarovar Hotels, a hotel management company that has taken its Sarovar Park brand to Shirdi, Badrinath, Amritsar and Pondicherry.

Japanese tourists, particularly at Shirdi and Badrinath, are drawn to Sarovar in droves, as also others looking for a comfortable stay.

It's expensive only by local reckoning. A room at Sarovar's Shraddha Park Inn at Shirdi is around Rs 2,500 a night. It offers meditation rooms, a spiritual library and ayurvedic massages, along with a beauty salon.

No alcohol, though, nor non-vegetarian food. "Other than that they have all the conveniences of a five-star hotel," informs Kalra.

Some of the pilgrimages in themselves can be quite bone tiring. Paying obeisance at the high altitude Chaar Dhaam shrines at Gangotri, Yamnotri, Badrinath and Kedarnath, for instance, has always been an arduous journey "" trekking in the biting cold, a genuine test of resolve if ever there was one.

Leisure Hotels, after its experience of pitching 60 luxury tents at the Maha Kumbh in 2000 with Cox & Kings ("for the foreign traveller" of course), has translated the idea to the Chaar Dhaam circuit.

Pitching 25 Swiss luxury tents with attached hot-water running bathrooms along the route of each shrine, the chain even offers multi-cuisine dining, ayurvedic massages and guided tours.

The success of the experimental venture has led the company to make permanent lodges there. Says Vibhas Prasad, director, business development, Leisure Hotels, "This is a market we want to tap further."

The holy city of Hardwar offers a slightly different set of opportunities. The Ganga town gets 15 million visitors a year, and Leisure Hotels has renovated a 100-years-old haveli along the river bank, some 500 metres from the famed Har Ki Pauri, and turned it into a 20-room heritage hotel that charges Rs 2,800-Rs 3,400 a night.

"The going has been so good that we have bought another haveli for a similar venture with 40 rooms," says Prasad.

No wonder the mid-budget brand Indi One by Taj Hotels also has plans for Hardwar. "The market is so big that many such ventures can be accommodated," feels Prasad.

Not all visitors to these places are devotees. All the same, it spins money. "Hospitality ventures at religious destinations are a success story," says Kalra.