Sustainable tourism: learning from Indian religious traditions

Religious pilgrimages have taken place for many hundreds of years without causing the negative environmental, cultural and social impacts associated with tourism. Common features of pilgrimages are: not an excessive burden on the environment; beneficial to local communities; occur at certain times of year only; people carry their own baggage and purchase food, etc. locally; pilgrims are quiet and law‐abiding; killing animals or taking from nature is taboo. Some lessons can be learned from these for modern tourism.