Exploring the Motivations of Millennials Opting for Temple Stays in India

Abstract

Millennials are the most promising consumer segment of the tourism industry and the fast pace of development and emergence of newer trends has led to a drastic change in consumer behaviour. Temple Stays are emerging as a significant source of tourism for sites that are transforming traditional religious practices into a complete hybrid of leisure and recreation. Considering this, the current research is framed to analyse the factors that motivate Millennials to undertake spiritual tourism activities, with special focus on Temple Stay programs at various Buddhist sites / monasteries in India and the revisit intentions of Millennials. The research is qualitative in nature - semi-structured interviews were conducted virtually with suitable respondents. Only those respondents who have stayed for 7 days or more in temples-stays were targeted by using purposive sampling techniques. The data were analysed using NVivo (12) and in order to achieve the objectives of the study thematic and content analysis were applied. The study identifies four motivational factors for Temple Stays, including comprehensive learning, self-growth, harmonising with nature, and spirituality. Analysis also revealed that travel motivations have a significant impact on life satisfaction among Millennials tourists that further reflects their revisit intentions to Temple Stays. The results of the present study will be helpful in realising the emerging market segment of tourism which is Millennials. Also, the study helps to provide a theoretical contribution by reflecting on the overall relationship between the various dimensions of spiritual tourism, life satisfaction and intention to adopt spiritual tourism practices again.

Keywords

• millennials
• temple stays
• spirituality
• revisit intention
• life satisfaction