India’s spiritual tourism sector is emerging as a powerful engine of regional growth, cultural preservation, and inclusive economic opportunity. With over 2 million temples,1 and a deeply rooted tradition of pilgrimage, religious tourism contributes significantly to the visitor economy generating revenue, creating jobs, and stimulating demand across hospitality, retail, transportation, and local crafts. Major pilgrimage sites such as Ayodhya, Puri, Ujjain, and Tirupati attract millions of devotees annually,2 with festivals like Rath Yatra and Maha Kumbh Mela catalysing large-scale economic activity. In fact, India’s temple economy is valued at INR 3.02 lakh crore (USD 40 billion), contributing nearly 2.32 per cent to the nation’s GDP.3 As spiritual tourism grows, it impacts both formal and informal sectors, creating a critical need for advanced infrastructure. AI is revolutionising governance at spiritual sites by enabling real-time crowd control, predictive safety, and data-driven planning, enhancing pilgrim experiences while fostering sustainable regional development.
Spiritual hubs face extreme peak‑day surges, multi‑entry/exit geometries, and riverine risk compounded by legacy reliance on manual counting, lack of regulatory oversight, and fragmented communications. The result: uneven queue management, sanitation backlogs, delayed incident response, and under‑optimised capex despite massive flows. For example, during peak periods, wait times at the Tirumala Tirupati Temple can extend up to 24 hours.4 Evidence from mega‑events shows how crowd numbers can swell rapidly across large geographies, while the absence of live, validated data increases operational risk and weakens planning for amenities, mobility and disaster readiness.
Spiritual tourism is undergoing a digital transformation as public authorities and temple boards, adopt AI to enhance governance, safety, and pilgrim services. Major religious sites are shifting from fragmented surveillance to unified, real-time monitoring using technologies like computer vision, underwater drones, and Integrated Command & Control Centres (ICCC).5 These centres analyse data from thousands of sensors and cameras to detect crowd patterns and trigger automated responses for crowd control, assistance, and emergencies enabling smarter, data-driven decision-making.
Uttar Pradesh Tourism Department has taken initiative to use AI cameras for visitor analytics, crowd-flow management and effective management of security operations at Kashi Vishwanath (Varanasi), Ram Temple (Ayodhya), and Gorakhnath (Gorakhpur),6 creating a repeatable blueprint for temple governance. Meanwhile, Puri’s Shree Jagannath Temple is planning to deploy AI counting and detection at 41 points with centralised dashboards and mobile access for decision‑makers,7 signaling a broader shift toward platformised intelligence across heritage sites.
The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) has launched an AI-integrated command centre, leveraging over 6,000 AI-powered cameras processing millions of data points to enable proactive governance and manage crowd flow, enhance safety,8 and monitor cyber threats. The ICCC uses real-time analytics, facial recognition, and digital twin maps to optimise darshan wait times. Additionally, at Vindhyachal (Mirzapur), UP Police’s deployment integrates facial recognition, unusual‑activity detection, Automatic Number Plate Detection (ANPR),9 and attribute‑based search accelerating reunification of missing persons and early risk identification.
Digi Yatra, an AI-powered initiative leveraging computer vision,10 streamlines digital identity verification and seamless access in airports and holds great promise for religious tourism. Temples and pilgrimage sites can adopt similar systems, enabling devotees to pre-book visits using Aadhaar-linked profiles and receive a mobile QR code. Upon arrival, facial recognition at self-check-in kiosks verifies identity and booking, allowing smooth entry while reducing congestion. This approach enhances crowd management, improves security by identifying potential threats, and streamlines operations during peak seasons. KPMG in India has collaborated for the Digi Yatra initiative since its inception and continues to explore its scalable applications across sectors, including spiritual tourism.
AI gives India an unprecedented opportunity in transforming spiritual tourism by converting real-time data into infrastructure insights. Footfall analytics and crowd mapping help prioritise sanitation and transport movement. ICCCs enable responsive governance, while AI-driven service delivery supports vendor zoning, logistics, and accessibility to decentralise over-crowding and boosting local vendors. For example, authorities can allocate spaces to vendors based on crowd movement patterns, while updates on crowd inflow such as peak times can help vendors plan their inventories accordingly.
Furthermore, AI de-risks investments in hospitality, mobility, and medical facilities by providing accurate visitor data – Predictive analytics assist with capacity planning, such as estimating accommodation needs or medical facility requirements. This also creates jobs across technology, security, and support services, at religious sites, contributing to the goal of generating 140 million temporary and permanent jobs by 2030.11 Image recognition and Natural Language Processing can help in digitising scriptures, rituals, and temple architecture, preserving intangible heritage. Successful deployments in Ayodhya, Tirupati, and Puri offer scalable models for corridor-level regional development nationwide.
AI is redefining spiritual tourism as a driver of regional growth and sustainable infrastructure. By turning real-time data into actionable insights, it enables safer pilgrimages, smarter investments, and inclusive opportunities. As India moves toward Viksit Bharat and a USD3 trillion tourism economy by 2047,12 leveraging AI could be key to creating intelligent, future-ready spiritual destinations that preserve heritage while unlocking economic potential.
