Impact of Covid on Religious Tourism in Rajasthan

Abstract

Social Tourist footfalls has plummeted in the first five months of the year because of the Covid epidemic. the number of tourists fell by more than 40% from January to May, compared to the same time previous year. The decrease was seen in both local and international tourist arrivals. Due to the shutdown, the number of domestic visitors was almost non-existent in April and May. In April, there were 86 international visitors and 115 in May. According to sources, these visitors were stranded in the state. This shortfall in the number of tourists have affected all the modes of tourism and related activities including religious tourism. All the temples and religious activities that has closed from the march 2020 is still in the closed condition. This closure has put a very inverse impact on the related and service providing institutions. Our study is based upon the religious tourism service providers views taken from 6 locations of the Rajasthan, very famous spots for the religious tourism including Brahma Temple, Pushkar, Galtaji Temple, Jaipur, Jain Temple, Ranakpur, Dargah Sharif, Ajmer, Dilwara Jain Temples, Mount Abu and Shrinathji temple, Nathdwara. A representative sample of 50 respondents from each religious site (total 300) were taken to measure COVID-19 impact on the Tourism for religious purposes at Rajasthan. Results revealed that the number of tourist camming for the country and forging have significantly dropped in year 2020 and nil for the two months April and May 2020. Further we have identified the problems and the way to remove the problems using the views of the respondents using the regression method to find out major problem and the way to improve the religious tourism in the selected sites of Rajasthan state. Keywords: Religious tourism, Rajasthan, tourists visit, Tourist service operators and COVID-19.