What are Charitable Trusts Doing in Religious Tourism? Insights from an Indian Pilgrimage Site

Abstract

This paper examines the role of religious institutions and charitable trusts in the religious tourism industry in India that involves more than 100 million trips to pilgrimage sites every year. It argues that such visitor influx is sustained partly due to the active engagement of charitable trusts in religious tourism. Their contribution is explained using the case study of Vrindavan, a pilgrimage site in north India where charitable trusts are central to the religious tourism economy. By weaving two concepts, the process of decision making in third sector organizations and the formation of religious capital, this paper demonstrates how private and public trusts administer temples, arrange necessary tourism infrastructure (accommodation, food, transport) and mediate religious experience for visitors. The environmental influences, transactional factors, and organizational processes determine their involvement that largely depends on “religious giving” framed through ritual performances and patronage relationships in the pilgrimage economy. In promoting religious capital, trusts help to maintain religion in the public sphere.

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