Retailing religion: Guided tours and guide narratives in Hindu pilgrimage

Abstract

This study investigates guided tours and guide narratives in the context of Hindu pilgrimage in Rishikesh and Haridwar, two pilgrimage towns in Northern India. Combining participant observation with analysis of audio-recorded guide narratives, it finds that the overall structure of the guided tours, combined with a variety of narratives and rhetorical devises, promotes the benefits and uses of religious objects. Cooperating with retailers of religious goods, guides are retailing religion as they combine and coordinate commercial and religious interests in their tours. Conceptualising pilgrimage and tourism as two separate domains, it is argued that tourist guides and their guided tours have become an integral part of Hindu pilgrimage and its operation in contemporary India.