international journ tour res entreprenuership

ABSTRACT

This paper demonstrates how indigenous religious entrepreneurs drive religious tourism in a non-western context. Building on the case study of Vrindavan, an emerging religious tourism destination in India, it explains religious tourism as a natural progression of traditional pilgrimage economy, where entrepreneurship springs from socio-cultural and ritual exchanges and knowledge of religious protocols and procedures between indigenous religious functionaries and visitors. Using religious hegemony, social status and networks, religious entrepreneurs innovate, develop new products and expand the cultural economy of rituals and performances to suit the demands of the burgeoning tourism. The tendency to consider such entrepreneurship as ‘informal’ not only exempts them from most regulations and legal responsibilities but also undermines their contribution in maintaining the ‘religious’ — the most important resource in religious tourism. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 5 June 2009; Revised 13 December 2009; Accepted 5 January 2010

Keywords: religious entrepreneurs; entrepreneurship; religious tourism; pilgrimage; India; Vrindavan.

INTRODUCTION

Religious tourism is a term widely used in theory and practice to refer to contempo-rary travel patterns to pilgrimage sites.

Religious tourism is considered to be a ‘specifi c type of tourism whose participants are moti-vated either in part or exclusively for religious reasons’ (Rinschede, 1992, p. 52) in such a way that it is ‘closely or loosely connected with holiday-making’ (Tomasi, 2002, p. 19). The destination for religious tourism is generally a sacred site, a pilgrimage site or a religious heritage site. It combines two opposite ends of the binary — sacred and profane — as refl ected in the pilgrimage–tourism dichotomy (Nolan and Nolan, 1992; Smith, 1992). Often, the key aspects of pilgrimage — the motivation for the trip, form of the journey and a sacred destina-tion — are used to explain religious tourism where leisure and holiday activities occur as supplementary opportunities within the need for religious travel (Tyrakowski, 1994). There is also a tendency to use external aspects such as tour operations, management and packaging of leisure-related activities, along-side pilgrimage, to claim religious tourism as a part of the tourism industry (Tomasi, 2002; Sharpley and Sundaram, 2005). However, most scholars concur that religious tourism is multi-layered and involves multi-functional and multi-purpose trips (Kaur, 1985; Nolan and Nolan, 1992). It simultaneously is a ‘niche’ market as well as one of the largest contributors to tourist fl ows.

A majority of the literature on religious tourism have originated from European coun-tries (Nolan and Nolan, 1992; Rinschede, 1992; Bywater, 1994). The focus in these studies

Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCHInt. J. Tourism Res. 12, 523–535 (2010)Published online 28 January 2010 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/jtr.771

Entrepreneurship and Indigenous Enterpreneurs in Religious Tourism in IndiaKiran A. ShindeGeography and Planning, School of Behavioural, Cognitive & Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales, Australia

*Correspondence to: Dr. K. A. Shinde, Geography and Planning, School of Behavioural, Cognitive & Social Sci-ences, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales 2351, Australia.E-mail: [email protected]

524 K. A. Shinde

Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Tourism Res. 12, 523–535 (2010) DOI: 10.1002/jtr

range from problems with the defi nition of the term and its theoretical conceptualisation to empirical evidence from religious tourism destinations. Olsen and Timothy (2006, p. 6) identify four broad themes in this literature: distinguishing the pilgrim from the tourist (tourist–pilgrim dichotomy); the characteris-tics and travel patterns of religious tourists; the economics of religious tourism; and the nega-tive impacts of tourism on religious sites and ceremonies. While the economic aspects of reli-gious tourism have generated substantial interest, it continues to be under-researched (Timothy and Olsen, 2006). A few studies have examined the economic importance of reli-gious tourism, the size of this niche market, key market players and its role in revitalising sites for religious tourism. Bywater (1994) observes that religious travel in Europe is a specialised market largely outside the domain of mainstream travel agencies/tour operators. It is marked by a high domestic presence with little infl uence of seasonality and is catered to by specialist suppliers through religious authorities and their qualifi ed tour guides. Religious travel also overlaps with cultural tourism and heritage tourism. For example, half of Rome’s annual visitors fi t into either the category of religious tourist or religious heritage tourist (Bywater, 1994).

While the multi-purpose nature of religious tourism poses several challenges for the man-agement of sacred sites, it also opens numerous opportunities for entrepreneurs. Yet the extent and forms of entrepreneurship in religious tourism remain an area of oversight. Such neglect is surprising considering that religious tourism is an activity closely related to and nested within specifi c religious, cultural and social contexts. This is even more problematic in the non-western world where the term reli-gious tourism has become commonplace but resonates only in parts with the ways religious tourism operates in the western world.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, I demonstrate how an analysis of entrepre-neurship can help in better understanding the phenomenon of religious tourism generally. In doing so, I move beyond conventional approaches that tend to limit religious tourism within a system of binaries and explore the wide canvass that religious tourism occupies. I

explain entrepreneurship as a unifying concept that ties together various aspects of pilgrimage and tourism into religious tourism. Second, I attempt to address the paucity of literature on entrepreneurship in religious tourism in a non-western context, particularly in India, where the term has gained wide currency. By focus-ing on the analysis of entrepreneurship, I want to forward a nuanced appreciation and under-standing of the differences between religious tourism in the western and non-western world. Entrepreneurship, although defi ned in eco-nomic terms, is also an arena dominated by cultural factors (Dahles, 1999). These factors may be associated with religious rituals and religious practitioners embedded in particular social, cultural and religious contexts. Gaining an understanding of entrepreneurs and their activities has important implications for pol-icy-making, sectorally and nationally (Shaw and Shaw, 1999), because entrepreneurs direct market trends in religious tourism.

This paper is organised in fi ve sections. In the fi rst section, I examine the concept of entre-preneurship and its relevance in religious tourism. The second section is a broad over-view of religious tourism in India. In the third section, I describe how these broader patterns are refl ected in the religious tourism destina-tion of Vrindavan. The emergence of new forms of entrepreneurship in Vrindavan is the topic of discussion in the fourth section. The concluding section demonstrates how entre-preneurship offers new insights in understand-ing religious tourism.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

As a generic concept, entrepreneurship is the act of directing resources (fi nancial and physi-cal) in new ways for the generation of profi t (Minniti, 2007). The seminal work of Schumpter (1936) has shown that ‘entrepreneurs carry out new economic combinations by introducing new products and new product functions, opening new markets, and by reorganising an industry’ (cited in Neblett and Green, 2000). This explanation originating in eco-nomics has subsequently been expanded to include psychological factors as well. Scholars also consider the initiative to work for oneself’ and behavioural attitudes as essential

Entrepreneurship in Religious Tourism, India 525


characteristics of entrepreneurs. Entrepreneur-ship is a combination of creativity and/or inno-vation, uncertainties/risk taking, managerial and business capabilities, and requires entre-preneurs to possess particular motivation and behavioural characteristics (Bull and Willard, 1995; Russell and Faulkner, 2004). Bull and Willard (1995) point out that entrepreneur-ship generally results from the following con-ditions — task-related motivation, expertise, expectation of gain for self and a supportive environment. A few scholars have found that socio-economic context provides enough reasons for the development of entrepreneurial traits and includes factors such as genetic inheritance, religious values, personality needs, geographical climate, status of group in com-munity and family structure (Ryan, 1992).

A useful way to begin exploring entrepre-neurship in religious tourism is by temporarily separating the composite of religious tourism into two parts; religion and tourism.

Some scholars consider religion to be a sacred market comprising numerous suppliers and buyers of religious and spiritual experi-ence (Jelen, 2002). Such abstraction is relatively easy to understand in religious tourism. Reli-gion provides resources (both material and metaphysical) including physical artefacts such as temples, churches and cathedrals, rituals, festivals and events for the activity of religious tourism (Nolan and Nolan, 1992; Singh, 2004). More than 75% of the economy in pilgrimage sites revolve around these resources (Vukonic, 1996). In this cultural economy, the key players are the religious functionaries and preceptors (individuals and institutions) who mediate the experience and exchange between visitors and the sacred or religious objects (Shackley, 2001).

Corporate religious bodies exercise exclu-sive control and management of religious structures within their premises, which also act as destinations for religious tourism. The priorities of these clerical bodies include the encouragement of worship, missionary activi-ties, education, and the offering of hospitality to their followers and management of pilgrim-age. Operating through a rigid clerical hierar-chy, their management is ‘often dogmatic, and authoritarian with religious leaders issuing orders and directions that are to be obeyed,

rather than debated’ (Shackley, 2001, p. 90). Increasing numbers of corporate religious bodies from various religious faiths (including Muslim, Christian and Buddhist) engage in promoting cultural and heritage tourism in their pilgrimage sites as they provide opportu-nities for the mission and to generate revenue for maintenance of their establishments (Nolan and Nolan, 1992; Shackley, 2001; Timothy and Olsen, 2006).

Most of these models of management have been built on traditionally established patterns of pilgrimage performances and patronage relationships. Religious bodies are found to be complacent with routine management and organisation because they understand that visitor numbers are less likely to decrease anytime. On the contrary, they face enormous challenges in dealing with increasing numbers of religious tourists (Shackley, 2001). However, the fl ourishing of religious theme parks does signify advancement of entrepreneurship in religious tourism (Shoval, 2000).

From an industry perspective, it is easy to identify entrepreneurship in tourism-related activities. According to Gee et al. (1989, p. 5), tourism comprises three major components: direct suppliers (sectors which are visible to the tourist, e.g. hotels, travel agents, restaurants, airlines and retailers), support services (which supply support to the direct suppliers, e.g. tour organisers, tourism research units, tourism and trade publications, food services and launder-ettes) and development organisations (which mainly handle tourism development and include government agents, fi nancial institu-tions, estate developers and training centres). There is some discussion of entrepreneurship within these components (Sofi eld, 1993; Hitch-cock, 2000; Wanhill, 2000; Russell and Faulkner, 2004). However, such explanations can at best be one-sided as these components involve entrepreneurs from the ‘formal sector’. Formal sector agencies are recognised, registered and considered to be legitimate contributors to the industry and therefore able to access all the support necessary for their operations and development (Timothy and Wall, 1997). But the dualism of the tourism economy is well known as a plethora of services is provided by the informal sector (may be with the exception of highly regulated activities such as air-travel)

526 K. A. Shinde


(Hampton, 1998; Li, 2008). Yet contribution and entrepreneurship of the informal sector agencies are seldom accounted for as they are not registered and therefore not considered legitimate (Timothy and Wall, 1997; Shaw and Shaw, 1999; Neblett and Green, 2000).

The problem of informality extends to reli-gious tourism and is compounded in the non-western world where the tendency is to categorise religious tourism as an ‘informal sector domestic tourism’ (Gladstone, 2005). Another challenge in identifying, measuring and articulating entrepreneurship in religious tourism is because of the unchanging canons of religious rituals and restrictions that work against modifi cation and innovation. But it is known that religious tourism is increasing and as I show later, religious actors constitute one of the forces driving it. Religious actors may not be registered in a formal sense but are a part of a social and religious hierarchy that main-tains the pilgrimage economy in pilgrimage sites. By defi nition, their activities lie within the ambit of the informal sector. In order to account for their contribution and better appreciation of their role in religious tourism, I suggest that they are referred to as indigenous entrepre-neurs. Hailey suggests that,

Indigenous entrepreneur is an indigen person who shows practical creativity and managerial ability in effectively com-bining resources and opportunities in an effort to provide produce, goods and ser-vices appropriate to the needs of the local community, and at the same time gener-ating suffi cient income to help them-selves, their family and the community in general. (Hailey, 1992, p. 7)

I expand on these ideas about entrepreneur-ship in relation to religious tourism in India.

THE INDIAN CONTEXT

In India since the 1970s, there has been ‘a period of religious creativity’ marked by the expansion of Indian religious movements to the west and the ‘emergence of Hindu reli-gious movements that revolve around solving the stresses and strains of contemporary life’ for middle and upper-class Indians (Madan,

2004, p. 265). The new climate of uncertainty and alienation, search for self-identity, sense of fulfi lment and ‘spiritual striving’ by the well-off urban middle-class is refl ected in the rise of religious renewal and the growing numbers of charismatic gurus who provide a ‘religion of choice’ for satisfying the spiritual needs of this class (Warrier, 2004, p. 14). New technologies of mass communication have also fuelled the new religiosity of the Hindu middle classes and the business of religious devotion. Televi-sion, print media and the Internet have helped revive some traditional practices and trans-formed others, including virtual temples, virtual pilgrimage rituals and virtual blessings (Rinehart, 2004).

These new trends in religiosity have played a signifi cant role in transforming the nature of pilgrimage travel and the emergence of reli-gious tourism in India. The Domestic Tourism Survey, conducted in 2002–2003 by the Indian government’s Ministry of Tourism, indicates that travel for religious purpose and pilgrim-age formed the most signifi cant component in domestic tourism, with more than 100 million people travelling to various religious events, temples and pilgrimage sites.1 According to the survey, short-term trips by middle- and upper-income groups now contribute a sub-stantial share of travel to sacred sites; nearly 50% of package tours and almost 20% of one-day trips are for religious and pilgrimage purposes (NCAER, 2003, p. 33).

The increased volume of religious travel has been accompanied by qualitative changes in terms of visitors and the organisation of the tourism industry (Kaur, 1985). The foray of Thomas Cook, the international tour company, into the domestic pilgrim travel market of India with the promise of three-star comforts for its clients, offering of insurance policies for pilgrims, coming of hotel chains in holy cities, indicate new developments in the pil-grimage industry and refl ect a higher degree

1 The National Council of Applied Economic Research for the Ministry of Tourism and Culture Government of India conducted the Domestic Tourism Survey in 2002–2003. It surveyed 800 000 households across the country in December 2002. The main objectives of the survey were to estimate the total number of domestic tourists by dif-ferent purposes of travel and to estimate the total magni-tude and patterns of tourist expenditures.



of consumerism and hedonistic behaviour that is typical of tourists (Shinde, 2008a). Hundreds of tour operators, through numerous websites, offer comfortable and often luxurious package deals for pilgrimage tours to some of the most popular pilgrimage circuits in India, with catchlines such as ‘deluxe moksha [salvation]’ and ‘instant nirvana’. The new patterns of travel by upscale clientele, including young professionals, rich non-resident Indians and foreigners refl ect the increasing use of hotels and resorts and services offered by tourism enterprises.

With new demands, new suppliers have also surfaced. Following Nolan and Nolan (1992), at least three different yet related submarket segments can be identifi ed in religious tourism: cultural tourism, spiritual tourism and religious travel. Using psychological and organisational parameters (Tomasi, 2002) can explain the dif-ferences and similarities between these (Reader, 2007), but one aspect that clearly distinguishes them is entrepreneurship. Cultural tourism revolves around the cultural experience that people want to derive from visiting a religious site, festivals or religious performances. Many government tourism agencies and private tour operators engage in the packaging of tours around pilgrimage circuits and the promotion of festivals and special events as cultural prod-ucts. These activities exhibit entrepreneurial acumen but are of spectator value rather than a performance of religious practice (Jaitly, 2001).

The difference between ‘spiritual tourism’ and ‘religious travel’ is apparent. A spiritual quest and volunteering for self-development are essential in spiritual tourism. In this segment, often formal agencies such as institu-tions (ashrams) of charismatic gurus and spe-cialised tour operators cater to the international and upmarket clientele by offering products such as yoga journeys and spiritual healing (Reader, 2007).2 The proliferation of hundreds

of self-proclaimed and charismatic gurus illus-trates the entrepreneurial role they play in driving this market (Rinehart, 2004).

Religious travel comprises all kinds of travel undertaken for performing rituals required as a part of organised religion (Singh, 2004). This segment of ‘living and active religious prac-tices’, mainly of domestic travellers, is by far the largest component in religious tourism (Gupta, 1999). It operates around the cultural economy of religious practices, rituals and rites of passage, along with the activities of religious practitioners such as gurus and temple priests in pilgrimage sites. The entre-preneurship of these religious actors is the focus of this study.

THE STUDY

The discussion of entrepreneurship in this paper is one part of a larger study that inves-tigated environmental issues associated with religious tourism in the north Indian pilgrim-age site of Vrindavan in the state of Uttar Pradesh. A majority of the 5500 odd temples in Vrindavan are dedicated to Krishna. Adjacent to Vrindavan is its twin city Mathura, the birthplace of Krishna. Both these places form the centre of a pilgrimage landscape known as Braj, which includes numerous sacred sites associated with the Krishna mythology. This pilgrimage landscape was founded by the Vaishnava saints in the fi fteenth and sixteenth centuries (Entwistle, 1987).

By virtue of its location within the ‘Golden Triangle for Tourism’ in north India (that includes Delhi, Agra and Jaipur as its major destinations),3 and its heritage of temples, Vrindavan has also emerged as a destination for religious and cultural tourism. The number of visitors in Vrindavan has signifi -cantly increased since the 1970s when a grand temple was built by the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) or the ‘Hare Krishna Movement’ as it is popularly known. This religious movement mainly

2 Even within this segment, Sharpley and Sundaram (2005) found three categories of ashram-tourists: spiritual seekers, tourist trail followers (to architecturally and culturally signifi cant sites) and yoga/meditation practi-tioners. Confi rming that such travel is to escape to the ‘other‘, they conclude that participants in such activities often come back stronger and are satisfi ed with the ful-fi lment of their spiritual quest.

3 Agra (50 km south-east) served as the capital of the Mughal Empire and houses the famous Taj Mahal; Delhi (150 km north) is the present national capital and Jaipur (about 200 km in the south-west) is the capital of Rajast-han, the state of fort-palaces.

528 K. A. Shinde


comprises devotees from North America and Europe and its unique ‘western’ appeal drove international and domestic visitors to Vrinda-van (Brooks, 1992). The twin cities of Mathura-Vrindavan were ranked as the sixth popular destination in terms of tourist fl ows in the 2002 Domestic Tourism Survey of India (NCAER, 2003). A recent study estimates more than 6 million visitors in Vrindavan annually (Shinde, 2008b).

Methodology

Fieldwork for this study was conducted in Vrindavan between February 2005 and May 2005. The methods included in-depth inter-views and surveys, the observance of public behaviour, and participation in various festi-vals, events, rituals and ceremonies. The common themes covered in the interview included views on pilgrimage, visitors, rituals, contemporary trends and environmental change. In total, 92 participants across the following major groups were interviewed. These included 25 religious entrepreneurs including religious gurus, priests and manag-ers of temples and ashrams; 35 local residents including scholars, shopkeepers, tour opera-tors, teachers, community leaders and repre-sentatives from traders’ associations; eight offi cials from government agencies related to the pilgrimage environment of Vrindavan; four representatives from non-government organisations and 20 visitors. In addition, 45 questionnaires were administered at three of the most popular temples in Vrindavan to understand the travel patterns of visitors.

In order to understand entrepreneurship, it is necessary to fi rst examine the relation between religious performances and perform-ers that constitutes the cultural economy.

Religious activities in Vrindavan

Visitors arrive throughout the year in Vrinda-van, their numbers peaking during the spring and monsoon seasons of the Hindu ritual cal-endar and ebbing during winter (Brooks, 1992). The different rhythms of the religious calendar and the rituals, festivals and events surround-ing the worship of Krishna serve as a kind of overarching framework for the pilgrimage

economy of Vrindavan. Alongside daily, weekly, seasonal and annual activities and ritual services in the temples, the pilgrimage economy is also centred on other religious–cultural performances such as katha, raslila, bhandara and mela (fairs). In katha performances, professional storytellers describe the exem-plary morality and ethical behaviour of renowned Krishna devotees and Vaishnava saints, and the rewards bestowed by Krishna in response to acts of unconditional love and devotion. Raslila is a form of folk theatre involv-ing performances of song, dance and dramatic vignettes from Krishna’s life in the Braj region. These performances are accompanied by bhan-daras (or ceremonial feasts) and rely on spon-sorships and donations from devotees and visitors (Entwistle, 1987).

The annual Braj-yatra is an important feature of the pilgrimage calendar. The yatra (journey) involves circumambulation of all the sites con-sidered sacred to or commemorative of Krish-na’s life in the Braj region (covering an area of about of 2500 km2 with a perimeter of 300 km) and begins during the monsoon season. The itinerary and routes taken to complete this journey differ among Vaishnava sects.4 The original route focused on 133 sites including forests, lakes, ponds, kunds (embanked water-bodies) and shrines, but most contemporary versions of the Braj circuit involve visits to 73 sacred places including 12 main forests and 36 kunds (Entwistle, 1987).

The crucial factor underpinning the pilgrim-age economy is, however, the social networks and ritual exchanges established between dif-ferent social actors and visitors and the extent to which their patronage relationships keep the everyday routines and commerce going in the temples and ashrams of Vrindavan.

Social actors and relationships in the pilgrimage economy

The pilgrimage economy relies on the mutual relationships established between four sets of

4 Some sects retrace the path taken by their founders in the sixteenth century, and complete the circumambula-tion in 15 days while others perform it over a period of six to seven weeks with over 10 000 pilgrims, several hundred priests, who perform various ritual services for pilgrims at sacred sites, and the leading fi gures of the sect.



actors; these are leaders of religious sects, ritual priests, auxiliary service providers and devo-tees. These relationships, traditionally referred to as jajmani, are of three kinds: those between religious leaders and their followers (mainly visitors), religious leaders and ritual priests, and between ritual priests and visitors.

The traditional religious leaders in Vrinda-van are known as goswamis. As per the tradi-tion, the term goswami ‘denotes an authoritative religious teacher, one who, in theory at least, is descended from one of the original disciples of Chaitanya [a Vaishnava guru from the 15th century who played a leading role in establish-ment of Vrindavan]’ (Kennedy, 1925, p. 26). Goswami families that have inherited the cus-todianship of the older and more prestigious temples constitute the elite religious class. Members of these families serve as hereditary temple priests and as the spiritual leaders or gurus for the followers of their sects and help pilgrims achieve the spiritual link with their deity. In doing so, they cultivate a strong rela-tionship of loyalty and continuity with follow-ers of the sect. The leading goswamis of sects spend most of their time either receiving dis-ciples at their temples or going on tour to dif-ferent cities and towns to visit their followers. During these encounters, both within their temples and outside Vrindavan, the goswamis provide spiritual counsel, meet potential fol-lowers and perform kathas for a wider audi-ence gathered through the efforts of their disciples. These relationships ensure the loyalty and fi nancial support for maintaining their temples and everyday rituals, the pres-tige of the guru, the activities of the sect and the business of pilgrimage.

The second jajmani relationship is between ritual priests, colloquially known as pandas, and visitors where they offer their services as guides to visitors and perform various rituals in exchange for a fee or donation. The pandas attempt to consolidate their relationship with visitors by maintaining registers and ledgers that record the genealogy of visitors to whom they or their ancestors have provided ritual services. Most pandas ‘operate loosely on a “free for all” basis’ and are often regarded as being ‘unscrupulous, money-grabbing and ignorant’ (Entwistle, 1987, pp. 6–7). Pandas often fi nd creative ways of convincing pilgrims

and visitors to part with their money (Weller, 1997).

There are numerous stories of the ingenious ways in which pandas earn their living in Vrin-davan. They establish relationships with priests of shrines that are not controlled by goswamis and arrange to receive a commission for each visitor they bring to the temple (Hawley and Goswami, 1981; Entwistle, 1987). Other stories of the canny strategies of pandas include setting up spurious sites and claiming their mythical association with various Krishna legends. Entwistle notes that two temples along the Yamuna River are promoted as the exact sites where Krishna is said to have killed the serpent Kaliya, but the new temple is more accessible to visitors than the older one situ-ated further upstream. When Entwistle ques-tioned the story of the new shrine and pointed out the existence of the older temple, the panda remarked, ‘No Problem . . . we can make a third one if we want!’ (1987, p. 276).

Besides the traditional social networks, increasingly new actors are contributing to the growth of the pilgrimage economy. Following the directions set out in the National Tourism Policy regarding the promotion of pilgrimage sites for cultural tourism and heritage tourism, the Uttar Pradesh State Tourism Development Corporation has identifi ed the Braj region’s festivals and sites as prime cultural tourism products for the state. The corporation has two main objectives. The fi rst is to promote pil-grimage sites as tourism destinations and the second is to work with the travel industry and private tourism operators to create ‘tourism circuits’ and encourage them to provide com-prehensive package tours that include trans-port, accommodation and visits to cultural performances and events in these circuits (U.P. Tourism, 2006).

The most striking difference produced from the transformation of the pilgrimage (purely religious) economy to a religious–tourist economy is the larger volume of visitor fl ows with changing expectations and demands. A survey of visitors arriving at major temple sites helped to understand these changes. The short questionnaire included questions regarding the frequency of trips made by the visitors, the mode of transport used for visiting Vrindavan, the itinerary, the duration of their stay, purpose

530 K. A. Shinde


of visits and the rituals performed during the visit.

The data from the visitor survey (45 responses) revealed that about 80% of respon-dents were regular visitors to Vrindavan. A third of the regular visitors came at least once or twice each year; one respondent visited every month. The remaining 20% of respon-dents had visited Vrindavan for the very fi rst time. The main mode of transport was by car or van, self-owned and driven (60%), or hired through regional taxi services (20%). Less than 20% travelled by public transport, i.e., trains or state-run regional bus services. The dura-tion of stay ranged between one and three days: 25% were on a day trip; 50% stayed over-night and returned home the following day; and the remaining 25% stayed for two nights before travelling to other places in the region. Of the 11 respondents that stayed in Vrinda-van, only fi ve chose to board in the ashrams of their gurus or in the lodgings built by their religious or caste associations. The travel pat-terns obtained from the survey correspond with those carried out by the MVDA in 1997, which found that the average duration of stay for visitors to Vrindavan was 1.35 days (MVDA, 1998).

The main motive for travelling to Vrindavan continues to be centred on devotional worship or Krishna darsan at different temples. About 20% attended the ceremonial prayers per-formed at temples during different times of the day; 50% of those visiting the temple neither wait to attend the ritual arati performance, nor intend to perform any specifi c pilgrimage associated rituals. Less than 10% of the res-pondents had performed the customary circumambulation of Vrindavan. Only 5 out of the 45 respondents in the survey indicated that they had relied on the services of pandas or local guides during their trip.

The day and weekend visitors offered two reasons for coming to Vrindavan, the fi rst being that Krishna is an important ‘wish-fulfi l-ing’ god and that it was worth the effort to visit the temples where the Krishna deities were well known for their power to fulfi l wishes. The second reason was that Vrindavan is a convenient and easily accessible destination for visitors from Delhi, Jaipur and Agra, and serves as a weekend getaway for religious and

leisure activities. Less than 10% of the respon-dents visited fi ve or more temples during their day or weekend trip. The average time spent by respondents in each temple was between 45 minutes to an hour. The survey of visitors at the entrance of major temples does not refl ect the entire range of trips to Vrindavan. Many of the pandas that were interviewed said that many day and weekend trips made by people from Delhi, Jaipur and Agra involve custom-ary visits to their family goswamis or gurus, initiation ceremonies for family members or sponsoring large ritual feasts to honour pledges made to particular deities or for other impor-tant events in the religious calendar.

The fi ndings from the survey refl ect the multi-purpose nature of trips that fulfi l reli-gious, cultural and recreational needs for visi-tors and in many ways confi rm the observations of the domestic tourism survey mentioned earlier. The combination of day and weekend visitors and package tourists through the year has transformed the economic environment of Vrindavan. These changing patterns and the new environment for religious tourism has forced many of the traditional actors and service providers in Vrindavan to modify their roles in order to either retain their presence in the industry or to increase profi ts from the fl ows of visitors to the town.

Emerging trends of entrepreneurship

New patterns of entrepreneurship are evident from the ways in which religious actors engage with the new trends of religious tourism.

The goswamis of leading Vaishnava sects, as well as some independent ‘god men’, have responded to the new trends by transforming themselves into religious entrepreneurs and operate their temples and ashrams as religious enterprises. These transformations are most visible in performances such as katha, Braj yatra and festival celebrations. The signifi cant fi nan-cial rewards offered by the business of katha performance have led to the proliferation of performers (Lutgendorf, 1989) and many of them use new communication technologies to promote their business. Those that previously relied on relationships with established temples and goswamis for their livelihood are now able to operate independently because of the



growing patronage of urban sponsors and organisers of package tours. Rather than relying on donations from the audience, these perfor-mances are organised through set fees (Lutgen-dorf, 1989). Performers have begun to modify frequency, geographic spread and the format of the katha presentation. The annual calendars of popular katha performers (who also claim to be spiritual gurus) appear to be globetrotting itineraries catering to domestic demands as well as to the Indian diaspora. Consider the fol-lowing itinerary of a famous performer from Vrindavan, which consists of a month-long tour of Indian cities including Jalandhar, Delhi, Jaipur, and then a two-month long tour of UK, Switzerland, Italy and Belgium. This tour is fol-lowed by another round of domestic destina-tions such as Govardhan, Kolkatta, Jaipur, Mumbai and Ludhiana before heading to Kenya for a fortnight of katha performance (Goswami, 2008). Such detailed and exotic itin-eraries may be exceptional for average per-formers but are indicative of the trends and potential of the market. Closer to home, katha performers have adapted similar strategies of marketing and self-promotion through social networks, advertisements in newspapers, bill-boards and local TV channels. Several religious gurus own websites that provide download-able lectures, devotional songs and Krishna stories. Others sell devotional song albums and videos and one offers a virtual circumambula-tion of Vrindavan through the website.5

Several goswamis and gurus have created a new market for ‘exclusive’ and ‘comfortable’ Braj-yatra that cater primarily to their wealthy Indian patrons and foreign devotees (Brooks, 1992). Findings from the yatra performed by the author point to the emerging trends in organisation of Braj-yatra. The main organiser,

claiming an illustrious Goswami lineage and referred to by the honorifi c title, Maharaj-ji, announced the yatra during one of his religious tours of duty in 2004 to various cities in India. He assured the audience that he had substan-tial experience in organising yatras, and that this one would be performed in eight days by travelling in cars from Vrindavan to all the main sacred places in the Braj region.

The tour of Braj began in March with more than 2000 participants. The participants were transported in 150 cars and 10 buses hired from local taxi and tour bus operators. In the following days, the yatra took on a standard pattern; participants assembled for a buffet-style breakfast served at the ashram and then boarded the cars and buses in the morning. The cavalcade of cars and buses made their way to two or three sites — temples, shrines or natural features like water bodies and hill-ocks — stopping at each place for about an hour. Packed lunches were transported in a special van. The procession of vehicles made their way back to the ashram in Vrindavan by sunset for cultural performances, which were followed by an elaborate buffet dinner, often sponsored by wealthy participants.

The contemporary version of Braj-yatra pres-ents several opportunities for entrepreneur-ship starting with Maharaj-ji (along with his aides) who operated more like a package tour provider mediating between participants and their religious and touristic expectations, and destinations. The growth in such package tours has also been benefi cial for auxiliary service providers such as the Brahmins that prepare ritual meals and feasts, and the musicians that perform at these events. Package tours usually include all of these services as part of the Braj-yatra. A similar pattern is followed in the roughly 30 to 40 Braj car-yatras that are now organised at different times of the year by various goswamis and gurus. In addition, there are many private tourist bus operators and few temples that offer smaller temple tourism packages called Braj Darshan tours.

Another notable event illustrates the appar-ent rise in entrepreneurial attitudes and behav-iour. A religious guru belonging to a hegemonic goswami family organised a ‘spiritual retreat’ on the island and a series of cultural perfor-mances (raslila) on a stage set in the middle of

5 A music company established by a katha performer claims to ‘own 3,500 titles of which a minimum of 10 have been 10 million sellers, and over 15 have grossed more than 5 millions in sales and another 20 have bagged sales of about a million’ (http://www.mridulvrindavan.com). According to this performer the inspiration to do so has come from a ‘divine dream’ in which he was summoned and directed by Krishna to make the katha accessible to people who are unable to attend his performances. Similar entrepreneurial ventures can be found at the following websites: http://www.gauranga.org; http://www.vrindavan.com; http://www.mvtindia.com/parikrama.htm.

532 K. A. Shinde


Yamuna River. His idea was ‘to celebrate Holi in an exceptional manner’ and ‘make it as memorable as the performance by interna-tional artist Yanni at the Taj Mahal in Agra in the past’ (Shinde, 2008b, p. 177). This novel event was widely advertised and marketed in major cities across the region exclusively for their own followers. The high profi le of the event was evident from the fact that Swiss tents were imported for setting up the camp on the island, the stage was set on a fl oat, the access was restricted and participants were expected to pay at least INR 2000–4000 per night of stay, which by any standards is very high as compared with other options available in the town.

The examples previously mentioned have not only set a precedent but also indicate the ways in which religious actors are reinventing themselves and their relationships in driving the religious tourism market in Vrindavan.

DISCUSSION

The changing trends of religiosity, pilgrimage performances, package tours, car-convoy Braj yatras, the promotion of cultural tourism by state government and tour operators, and infl ux of foreigners through the ISKCON movement are transforming the pilgrimage economy of Vrindavan. The proliferation of modern ashrams, luxury apartments, hotels and restaurants in the region to cater for increasing tourist fl ows indicates that a new kind of tourist space — associated with leisure and religious consumption — is being produced. Yet religious activity is central to this phenomenon and therefore this transition is better explained as religious tourism. In reli-gious tourism, both components — religion and tourism — are open for entrepreneurial activity. More often than not, religious actors are also the ones who provide services that support tourism. However, the opposite is not true; tourism agencies can promote and orga-nise the travel part but the religious part needs some kind of assistance/intervention of religious actors.

Following the classical work of Schumpter (1936), it is evident that religious actors have opened new markets by exploring new eco-nomic combinations and by reorganizing the

pilgrimage industry to cater to religious tourism. Religious gurus capitalise on the sanctity and cultural importance of Vrindavan to attract a larger tourist clientele, seeking new forms of leisure and cultural event-based experiences. Besides market demands, their entrepreneurship results from factors such as genetic inheritance, religious values, personal-ity needs, status of the group in community and family structure (Hitchcock, 2000; Ryan, 1992). In the examples previously mentioned, the entrepreneurs belong to the elite class of Goswami families, their aim was to dissemi-nate the core values of their sect, and to strengthen linkages with existing followers and recruit new followers. As gurus, they are seen as important personalities with hege-monic social status and therefore their ven-tures remain unquestioned. Their religious duties are spread across the large joint families that are entrusted and attached with their hereditary temples. Religious gurus aptly translate these conditions and circumstances, which infl uence entrepreneurial traits, into opportunities to participate in present-day religious tourism (Minniti, 2007).

The activities of religious actors show almost all features of an entrepreneur, including risk taking, expertise, expectation of gain and sup-portive environment, and task-related motiva-tion (Bull and Willard, 1995; Shaw and Shaw, 1999). In a market where the demand for reli-gious and spiritual experiences is increasing, entrepreneurship can be articulated in terms of the ability of gurus to attract sponsors and recruit new followers. Be it the retreat on the island, the car-yatra or the globetrotting per-former of katha, there was an element of gain and risk involved. Organisers of both ventures suffered fi nancial loss; the tents on the island were vacant and many participants spent more time and had meals in the town rather than at the camp; and the last leg of the car-yatra was cancelled because the organisers were not able to pay the car drivers. These activities were a part of their regular tasks but they found new, innovative ways to accomplish them. The idea of Braj-yatra was the same, but its organisation and management were considerable depar-tures from the tradition. Yet the participants, organisers and followers of the gurus were supportive and applauded these ventures.



However, such entrepreneurship also attracts criticism.

The new strategies of religious entrepre-neurship and competition among goswamis, gurus and tour operators have supplanted social networks previously supporting the pil-grimage economy. Some of the gurus and gos-wamis of older temples are critical of the new entrepreneurship of their more prosperous colleagues, arguing that commodifi cation of performances such as katha and the prolifera-tion of yatras outside the traditional pilgrimage season devalues the spiritual meaning of the experience and the importance of the rituals for visitors, and negatively affects the sanctity of the place. They point out that the increasing tendency of gurus to cater to the immediate gratifi cation of religious tourists has reduced Vrindavan to the status of a religious mar-ketplace. Such criticism of entrepreneurship, however, is misplaced. The new forms of entrepreneurship are manifestations of new patronage relationships (between religious actors and middle-class urban visitors) that establish the contemporary framework for religious tourism.

The increasing competition among religious actors to serve religious tourists has affected the income-earning opportunities for pandas as visitors are less inclined to enter into jajmani relations with pandas. Entwistle (1987) observes that some panda families in Vrindavan have responded to the changing conditions by diversifying into small-scale commercial ser-vices including money lending, accounting or land brokerage. The tactics of pandas who operate in the religious sphere, be it herding of visitors into new temples or establishing spurious new sites, are seen as unscrupulous (Weller, 1997). A balanced view would con-sider them as entrepreneurs trying best to explore the potential and supply services in a competitive market where visitors want to see as many temples as possible in a short trip.

CONCLUSION

I began by asking who the entrepreneurs are and where the entrepreneurship in religious tourism is. Based on the study of Vrindavan, I have demonstrated that religious entre-preneurs drive religious tourism, at least in a

non-western context. I have also shown that entrepreneurship helps to understand the difference between religious tourism in the western and non-western world as well as the differences between subtypes of religious tourism. Following the analysis of entrepre-neurship, it can be said that religious tourism is a natural progression of the ritualised pil-grimage economy, infl uenced by the changes in socio-economic, religious and cultural activ-ities that accompany contemporary pilgrimage practices. Entrepreneurship results from the embeddedness of this economy, in particular religious–cultural contexts.

Religious tourism entails more than visual aspects; it is a participatory process. It is not only about visiting a sacred site but also visit-ing in a certain manner (socially and cultur-ally) that works on knowledge of religious procedures and protocols (Gupta, 1999). If the fi nal act is not performed in cooperation with or utilising the services of indigenous entre-preneurs, confl icts may arise, diminishing the experience that is being sought (Shackley, 2001). The indigenous religious entrepreneurs, the traditional organisers and managers of the pilgrimage industry, appeal to religious sensi-tivities and mediate between the experience of performing religious rituals and the conve-nience of undertaking the performances. And therefore, instead of being critical of such entrepreneurship, it should be seen as a force that drives religious tourism.

I also argue that entrepreneurship in reli-gious tourism can be better explained by moving beyond the conventional approach of the ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ sectors in tourism. By defi nition, religious entrepreneurs would be categorised as informal, but doing so will prove detrimental, both to a theoretical under-standing of religious tourism and its practical development. There is a strong social dimen-sion to entrepreneurship in religious tourism. Entrepreneurship generally occurs at the top social class and elite level (hegemony of certain groups) and permeates down (Dahles, 1999; Hitchcock, 2000). Often, there is inequity with regard to access to the market and it continues for socio-economic and political reasons (Sofi eld, 1993; Echtner, 1995). Those who aspire to be entrepreneurs face barriers of challenging religious traditions and orthodoxy and are at

534 K. A. Shinde


the risk of condemnation for increasing touris-tic activities and profanising the sanctity of the place (Shoval, 2000). Yet non-religious actors including tour operators and government agencies that promote cultural and religious tourism escape such censure. As this paper has focused on only religious entrepreneurs, it is necessary to explore the role of non-religious entrepreneurs (including the formal and infor-mal sectors) in religious tourism.

One way to move forward is to focus on how to support entrepreneurship in reli-gious tourism. Generally, the training and education of entrepreneurs are suggested to address typical barriers in entrepreneurship that include fi nance and lack of experience, knowledge, marketing skills and the high-risk nature of the tourism industry (Echtner, 1995). However, none of these appears to be prob-lems in religious tourism. A major challenge in religious tourism is the regulation of entre-preneurs, especially when they are mostly categorised as ‘informal’ (Shaw and Shaw, 1999). While the tourism policy (national and state) is silent on the notion of religious entre-preneurship, considering religious entrepre-neurs as informal further excludes them from the industry, their exclusion implied from the rules and regulations the formal sector enter-prises are subjected to. This paper suggests that policy-makers should recognise the need for a comprehensive policy that neither undermines the pivotal role of religious entre-preneurship nor compromises the ‘religious’ nature of activities that form the basis for religious tourism.

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