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Religious Cultural Tourism in Pakistan: Significance, Opportunities and Its Role in the Socio-economic Development





Author(s)

Tahir Saeed, Arshad Ullah, Asad Ullah

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DOI:10.17265/2328-2177/2025.05.005

Quaid-i-Azam University; Archaeology & Museums, Islamabad, Pakistan； Archaeology & Museums, Islamabad, Pakistan

The concentrated efforts for proper safeguarding the cultural heritage of a country are about preserving knowledge, skills, and history. It’s a way of transferring knowledge or communicating heritage from generation to generation to keep it alive. There is a risk lying that a certain element could die or disappear if the chain broke. Pakistan is home of the centuries-old civilizations like Mehrgarh, Indus Valley, and Gandhara. It hosts scores of archaeological sites dated back more than to 9,000 years. Many of them revered for not only the followers of the world’s three major religions namely Buddhism, Sikhism, and Hinduism but also from some pre-historic religions such as Aryan, Barhaman, and ancient Iranian and Greek religions. The northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhawa Province of Pakistan hosts 70% of the sites in the country sacred to Sikhs and Buddhists religion. At present the ratio of visitors to religious archaeological sites and monuments is very low as compared to other developing countries, especially the neighboring countries. We can increase in number of tourists from abroad as our country has great potential to attract visitors from the world to visit Hindu Temples, Sikh Gurdwaras, Christians Churches, Buddhist Stupas & Monasteries, Jain Temples, Muslims religious shrines, tombs, and other establishments. The best practices of protection and its proper projection both at home and abroad will increase the volume of travel and religious tourism in our country. Further by adopting such proposed measures and steps will not only present a soft image of Pakistan to the world but can contribute at large for the socio-economic development in the country.

culture heritage, religious sites and monuments, temples, Gurdwaras, Churches, stupas, monasteries