New York Times & World Religious Travel Association

NY TIMES
April 29, 2007
21st-Century Religious Travel: Leave the Sackcloth at Home
By JOSHUA KURLANTZICK

IT’S not often you meet a god. But on a pouring day last summer in Dharamsala, home to the Tibetan exile community in India, I did. In a monastery outside town, I was shown into a vast, bare room. At the front sat the 17th Karmapa Lama, third-ranking leader in Tibetan Buddhism — a figure considered almost a god by many Tibetans. The Karmapa fled Tibet when he was a boy, but in exile he had become a man, in his early 20s, with a broad, shaved head and meaty arms beneath his flowing monk’s robes.For nearly an hour, I questioned the Karmapa about Buddhism, world politics, his own life. Sometimes, he would answer as I imagined a monk should, gazing into the distance and delivering oblique replies. Sometimes, he would answer like a boy asked a school question he does not know, scrunching up his face as he scrambled for a reply. In either case, the Karmapa answered like a figure who knows an entire people follow his every word.The Karmapa finally left, draping a traditional white scarf on my shoulders; I walked out feeling I might never have such an unusual experience. But when I descended from the Karmapa’s quarters, I realized my audience had not been so unique. Buddhist travelers from Hong'>http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/asia/china/hong-kong/overview.html?inline=nyt-geo">Hong Kong and Taiwan waited outside to see the Karmapa. His assistants lugged through the monastery bags full of the visitors’ offerings, which, bizarrely, included enough vials of multivitamins to stock a health food store. (Maybe he was lifting weights back in his private quarters.)Not that I should have been surprised. While religious-oriented travel has been around since the first pilgrimages, in recent years it has developed into a much larger and more segmented market, with niches ranging from high-end religious travel to volunteer-oriented religious travel to modern-day pilgrimages like a visit to the Karmapa.Kevin Wright, executive director of the World Religious Travel Association, a trade group set up this year to help organize the faith-based market, says there is an increase in “the overall demand for religious travel by people of faith,” which, in turn, has brought growth to companies serving this market. Next year, Mr. Wright’s group will be host of the first World Religious Travel Expo.In fact, a study released in November by the Travel Industry Association revealed that a quarter of travelers said they would be interested in taking a spirituality-oriented vacation. Today, the global religious travel market has reportedly become an $18 billion-a-year industry.Travel experts credit several factors for this upsurge. Offering travel programs allows churches and other institutions a competitive advantage in the search for constituents. Many younger religious travelers want a vacation that combines faith with fun, and churches recognize a need for an active religious vacation. Nations with critical religious sites, like Scotland, home to some of the fathers of the Reformation, have begun to brand themselves to faith-oriented tourists.Also, major travel companies have gotten into the action, which brings more publicity to the field. Globus, a giant European travel firm, has opened a religious-travel section, which runs trips ranging from vacations that explore the Christian theology of C. S. Lewis to excursions following the Polish heritage of Pope'>http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/j/_john_paul_ii/index.html?inline=nyt-per">Pope John Paul II.As the religious travel market has boomed, it also has broken into niches. Once, religious-oriented travel meant either trips to historic sites, like Jerusalem or Mecca, or volunteer vacations to help needy people in developing nations. But in recent years, religious travelers have expanded their vacation options, though traditional trips like an Israel tour or volunteering with a group like American Jewish World Service remain popular.“In the past five to 10 years, the religious market has transitioned from a ‘poverty/penitential travel mentality’ to a first-class travel mentality,” said Mr. Wright. “The religious market now pays for first-class travel products and services. This is a major departure from several millennia of religious travel tradition.”Tour operators and religious-oriented travel agents are realizing religious travelers do not necessarily need sackcloth and ashes. Royal Caribbean now allows Christian travel operators to run specialty cruises on its ships, like Cruise with a Cause, a Christian cruise to the Bahamas featuring Christian pop stars like Matthew West and opportunities to land ashore for mission work. Holland America has done the same, allowing operators to run cruises to Alaska on its vessels featuring Christian naturalists, gospel singers and a religious bookstore where the on-board casino normally is.In the most notable example of high-end faith travel, this year, the ultra-luxury operator TCS Expeditions offered a $45,000 tour around the world called Great Faiths. On the trip, tourists were to take in the greatest religious sites in the world, from Varanasi’s'>http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/asia/india/varanasi/overview.html?inline=nyt-geo">Varanasi’s sacred waters to Ethiopia’s'>http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/africa/ethiopia/overview.html?inline=nyt-geo">Ethiopia’s subterranean churches — all on one excursion. They also planned to hop from site to site in private jets and spend evenings at luxurious hotels, from the King David in Jerusalem to the Oberoi in Delhi.Other religious travelers, including church groups, have recognized that spiritual healing fits naturally with physical healing, or with active pursuits like skiing or hiking. Recognizing this, luxury spas in countries like India and Thailand have begun offering Buddhism-related packages for travelers coming for more prosaic services like massage.The religious travel boom also means it is easier for tourists to research their trips and find a vacation suited to their exact needs. In the religious-travel section of the comprehensive site flyertalk.com, travelers now trade tips on the best places to find kosher food in China and opinions on the best religious festivals to visit in the world. http://www.christian-travelers-guides.com/ lists links to guidebooks and many other Web sites. The World Religious Travel Association Directory (on the Web at http://www.religioustravelassociation.com/) offers links to tour operators around the world.Or, you could take the traditional approach: Wander foreign lands until you find a site that seems holy to you. On one of my last days in Dharamsala, I attended Friday night services at the local synagogue. Standing outside, under the cover of a tarpaulin roof, rows of men in yarmulkes and women in traditional long Indian skirts rocked back and forth as they chanted joyous hymns welcoming the Jewish Sabbath.Later, after services, we all walked upstairs to a communal room, where we sat in rows on the floor, breaking off tiny pieces of challah and dipping them into communal bowls of hummus and salad. Across from me, a young Israeli traveler eagerly tore into his bread. “I just got out of the army — I’ve been here a few weeks,” he said. “I could stay here for months. I don’t even need to do anything here. Just be here.”