Abstract
Spiritual tourism brings visitors looking for spiritual experiences, reflection, cultural influences and inner peace. As a segment of the tourism industry, it has increased in demand over the past one decade. The research investigates the expectations and satisfaction of spiritual tourists in the regions of Rishikesh and Haridwar in the state of Uttarakhand. Primary data collection was achieved through questionnaires that were appropriately structured and assembled after responses were achieved from 218 individual tourists. The primary interpretations on the expectations & satisfaction of tourists were derived from information on 10 aspects which were cleanliness, safety awareness, cost issues, hospitality, spiritual activities, events, spiritual guides, means of transport, tourism experience, and spiritual services catered. The data was processed with the use of frequency, percentage and independent sample t-test. The results suggest a positive expectation for tourists in all researched dimensions. However, out of these expectation drivers, hospitality was noted as important for expected improvements. The research also highlighted that satisfaction levels were also affected by price, spiritual activities, spiritual guides and means of transport. A key takeaway of the research is that with improvement in the above mentioned aspects, the quality of spiritual tourism and thus the number of tourists may improve considerably.
Keywords: Expectations, Haridwar, Rishikesh, Spiritual Tourism, Satisfaction.