NAVVNEET DUBEY
Jammu: Pilgrimage and religious activities accounted for nearly 55 per cent of domestic overnight trips to Jammu and Kashmir within four major travel-purpose categories, more than double the share of holidays and leisure travel, according to government survey data. Data from the National Statistics Office’s Domestic Tourism Expenditure Survey (DTES), conducted between July 2025 and June 2026 as part of the 80th round of National Sample Survey, shows that pilgrimage and religious activities accounted for an estimated 54.8 per cent of trips in the relevant survey category for Jammu and Kashmir.
For J&K, the dominance of pilgrimage underscores importance of Shri Amarnath Ji Yatra, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi pilgrimage and other religious circuits in driving domestic overnight visitation. Over 4.80 lakh devotees had darshan of Baba Barfani in recently concluded Amarnath yatra while over one lakh pilgrims have visited the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine in the just first three days of the ShardiyaNavratras.
Holidaying, leisure and recreation accounted for 22.8 per cent, while health and medical travel represented 19.9 per cent. Shopping-related trips constituted the remaining 2.4 per cent of trips in this grouping. The figures indicate that religious travel forms the largest component among these four categories of domestic overnight trips to J&K, substantially exceeding leisure tourism. In effect, pilgrimage alone accounted for more than the other three categories combined.
A comparison of the same categories across three Himalayan destinations reveals significant differences in travel patterns. In Himachal Pradesh, holidaying and leisure was the dominant purpose, accounting for 44.7 per cent of trips in these categories, compared with 35.3 per cent for pilgrimage and religious activities. This is almost inverse of J&K pattern.
Uttarakhand, meanwhile, recorded an even greater dependence on religious travel, with pilgrimage accounting for 63.3 per cent of trips in the corresponding categories, the highest among the three. Holidays and leisure represented 24.7 per cent there, and health 11.7 per cent. Thus, Jammu and Kashmir’s leisure share at 22.8 per cent was considerably lower than Himachal Pradesh’s 44.7 per cent, while its religious travel share at 54.8 per cent remained below Uttarakhand’s 63.3 per cent, placing J&K in middle for religious dependence.
The data also highlights contribution of medical travel. Health and medical purposes accounted for 19.9 per cent of relevant trips to Jammu and Kashmir, compared with 18.2 per cent in Himachal Pradesh and 11.7 per cent in Uttarakhand. This suggests J&K draws relatively higher proportion of health-related overnight domestic travel among the three states within this grouping.
According to survey records accessed, calculations covered 2,698 sampled overnight household trips to Jammu and Kashmir, 1,921 to Himachal Pradesh and 4,461 to Uttarakhand. The percentages were derived using survey’s statistical multipliers and relate to four leading purposes recorded in Block 5.1 of the survey schedule.
Officials noted that findings do not represent distribution of every domestic trip undertaken for all purposes. Other categories, including business, social visits, education and other purposes are recorded separately under a different survey reference period and have not been included in this comparison. The survey also records main purpose of a trip undertaken by household members rather than treating each traveller as separate trip, meaning figures reflect household trip purpose classification.
The findings suggest composition of domestic travel to Jammu and Kashmir differs markedly from Himachal Pradesh, where leisure accounts for considerably larger proportion of trips within comparable categories, while aligning more closely with Uttarakhand where religious travel dominates. However, data does not establish how much revenue each travel category generates within Jammu and Kashmir or whether observed differences between states are statistically significant. The DTES survey collected detailed information on domestic travel destinations, trip purposes, accommodation, transport and expenditure across India, providing key inputs for tourism policy.
