Attracting pilgrims
Over 6,700 Sikhs arrived last week from India to take part in the Baisakhi Mela (festival) to be held on April 14 at Gurdwara Janam Asthan, Nankana Sahib. Some of the holiest sites for Sikhs are in Pakistan. In India, the Golden Temple has about 100,000 pilgrims daily. But that is not the only avenue of religious tourism.
At $3.3m, religious tourism reached its highest level ever in FY24, the year Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin, the spiritual leader of the Bohra community, was in Karachi for the annual 10-day Muharram congregations, known as Ashara Mubaraka. Including the local bohra population, nearly 80,000 community members converged worldwide.
Pakistan has largely untapped potential as a destination for religious tourism not just for Sikhs but also for Hindus, Sufis, Christians and Jains, according to the report ‘International Religious Tourism to Pakistan’ by the Pakistan Business Council. Many potential Buddhist religious tourism markets, such as Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, are unaware of the Buddhist trail in Pakistan. Pakistan is also home to about 493 Hindu temples and the market for Hindu religious tourism is much bigger than the Sikh religious tourism market, according to the report.
If one 10-day event by one small community could help boost tourism exports to a peak, imagine the potential of religious tourism of millions in Pakistan.
Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, April 14th, 2025