The main purpose of this chapter is to analyze the current state of the outbound Buddhist pilgrimage tourism from Sri Lanka to India and Nepal with emphasis on tourists profile, expectations and behaviors of the tourists, attractions, role of the pilgrimage business stakeholders in Sri Lanka, tour packages, government policies, impact, and associated trends. A majority of the tourists prefer to live in an own ‘Sri Lankan tourist bubble' in the pilgrim experience with consumption of Sri Lankan foods, service of Sinhala speaking tour leaders, and home country Buddhist rituals at the sites. Sri Lankan Buddhist pilgrims consider this tour as a once-in-a-lifetime experience to be spiritually engaged with the most sacred places of their religious universe.
TopIntroduction
Sri Lanka can be considered as an important tourism market for both India and Nepal due to close proximity within the same South Asian region and close cultural relationships associated with Buddhism and beyond. The island was among the top five tourism source markets for India in 2018 with 353, 684 (3.35%) arrivals (Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, 2019) and Nepal received 69, 640 (5.94%) Sri Lankan tourists on the relevant year making it the 4th highest tourist origin country for the destination (Government of Nepal, Ministry of Culture, Tourism & Civil Aviation, 2019). The contribution from Buddhist pilgrim tourists for the Sri Lankan arrivals in recent period is significant, in accordance with statistical information.
Lumbini, the most visited Buddhist pilgrim attraction in international tourism of Nepal has attracted 59,959 pilgrims from Sri Lanka in 2018 (Government of Nepal, Ministry of Culture, Tourism & Civil Aviation, 2019) and this figure represents the largest number of non-Indian tourists to the site from a single foreign market with 35% of total non-Indian arrivals. It is vital to be pointed out that 86% of Sri Lankan tourists to Nepal in the year have visited Lumbini and therefore, Buddhist pilgrimage can be recognized as the most important reason for outbound tourism of Sri Lanka to Nepal. Saranath, a major Buddhist site in India was visited by 36,624 Sri Lankan tourists in 2012 with the contribution of 10.3% for non-Indian international arrivals to the site (Mann & Thapar, 2015). In comparison with the total Sri Lankan arrivals of the year, the latter figure indicates that 12.3% of Sri Lankan tourists to India have been attracted to the site. This is an interesting percentage related with Buddhist Pilgrim tourism in the context of diversity and mammoth number of attractions in India. Although, the contribution of Sri Lankan arrivals for the both destinations have decreased due to recent calamities of the country, still it remains as an important market.
Buddhist pilgrim tours covering the sacred Buddhist sites directly, associated with the life of Buddha in India and Nepal are widely termed as ‘Dambadiva tours’, ‘Dambadiva pilgrimage’ or ‘Dambadiva pilgrim tours’ by Buddhists in Sri Lanka. ‘Dambadiva’ is considered as the ‘home land of Buddha’ comprising the area where Buddha was born, lived and preached. The main purpose of this chapter is to analyze current state and challenges of the outbound Buddhist pilgrimage tourism from Sri Lanka to India and Nepal with emphasis on policies & initiatives, tourists profile, motivations, expectations and behaviors of the tourists, destinations and attractions, pilgrimage business stakeholders in Sri Lanka, tour packages, marketing, impact, challenges and associated trends. Literature review on published works and product analysis of nineteen outbound tour operators handling Buddhist pilgrim tours to the destinations were used as methods of this work within a Sri Lankan perspective. It is intended to conceptualize the identified phenomena of ‘Sri Lankan tourists bubble’ and heritagization of the pilgrim tour in Sinhala Buddhist Psyche as well.