Buddhist travel & tourism trails offer post-pandemic potential in Mekong

Not­ing that themed travel & tour­ism niches have been a grow­ing trend for at least two dec­ades, vet­er­an pub­lish­er Jaf­fee Yee has iden­ti­fied the poten­tial for the Mekong-region nations of South­east Asia to tap their rich Buddhist her­it­age to attract and dis­perse a large region­al and glob­al market. 

It’s a “Good Tour­ism” Insight. (You too can write a “GT” Insight.)

Twenty years ago, to explain why he was pub­lish­ing themed travel guides, Lonely Plan­et founder Tony Wheel­er said that travel was becom­ing more focused on spe­cif­ic interests, such as diving, golf­ing, or simply eating. 

That is even more true now with young­er gen­er­a­tions of trav­el­lers, espe­cially the Chinese. There­fore, many more tour oper­at­ors are offer­ing cus­tom­ised pro­grams for their clients. 

In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, I want to focus on a niche mar­ket called Buddhist tour­ism, for which the Great­er Mekong Sub­re­gion (GMS or ‘the Mekong’) has a lot to offer.

First, I would like to give a gen­er­al over­view of the Mekong’s resources in this travel niche, and then talk a little about what more can be done to pro­mote it.

There are two major cat­egor­ies of Buddhist traveller:

1. Ser­i­ous fol­low­ers of Buddhism who may be more inter­ested in pil­grim­ages; and 
2. The gen­er­al pub­lic who may or may not be Buddhist or belong to any oth­er reli­gion, irre­spect­ive of race and nationality. 

I will focus on the second category. 

Core activities of Buddhist travel …

For the gen­er­al pub­lic, temple vis­its are the core activ­ity of Buddhist travel. 

There are more than 200 mil­lion Buddhists liv­ing in the Mekong region. The major­ity of the coun­tries that com­prise the GMS are con­sidered Buddhist, with Buddhism the main­stream reli­gion, espe­cially Cam­bod­ia, Laos, Myan­mar, and Thai­l­and, and to a less­er extent Viet­nam and China’s Yun­nan province. 

The Mekong prob­ably has the most Buddhist temples in the world, and is endowed with many amaz­ing his­tor­ic­al sites and ancient monu­ments, many of which have been inscribed as UNESCO World Her­it­age sites. Among them are the world-fam­ous Angkor Wat, Phra Vihear, and Sam­bor Prei Kuk in Cam­bod­ia, Vat Phou in Laos, My Son Sanc­tu­ary in Viet­nam, and Suk­hothai and Ayuthaya in Thailand. 

Also see Ricardo Nic­olas Progan­o’s “GT” Insight
“Well­ness pil­grim­age: A post-COV­ID busi­ness oppor­tun­ity for sac­red sites”

Apart from these ‘high­lights’, there are many more ancient temples in the region, includ­ing the thou­sands in Bagan and Mrauk U, Myan­mar, and the hun­dreds of ancient Lanna temples across north­ern Thai­l­and. Most of them are eas­ily accessible.

To avoid temple fatigue — some people call it being “templed out” — oth­er related activ­it­ies can be included in any Buddhist travel pro­gram, such as par­ti­cip­at­ing in alms­giv­ing in the early morn­ing, as is pop­u­lar in Luang Pra­bang in Laos, or join­ing Buddhist fest­ivals and events that take place through­out the year. 

… in Thailand

Many Bud­h­hist events and fest­ivals, includ­ing much of what I’ve high­lighted below for Thai­l­and, are com­mon to all Buddhists and Buddhist nations. How­ever, there are loc­al­ised inter­pret­a­tions and flour­ishes and unique events even with­in countries.

Every Feb­ru­ary or March on the day of a full moon, Makha Bucha marks the com­ing togeth­er of 1,250 enlightened dis­ciples of Buddha to listen to his teach­ings. They became the first monks ordained by Buddha himself. 

On Makha Bucha day, Thai Buddhists go to temples to make mer­it and join candle­light pro­ces­sions (Wian Tian) which involve walk­ing around the temple three times while pray­ing and hold­ing lit candles, joss sticks, and flowers. This is also one of the largest and most import­ant annu­al fest­ivals cel­eb­rated at Wat Phou in south­ern Laos.

Also see Rohan Bhalla’s “GT” Insight
“Can tour­ism help solve the post-COV­ID men­tal health crisis?”

In May or June, Visakha Bucha rep­res­ents the birth, enlight­en­ment, and passing into Nir­vana of Buddha. 

Held in July, on the full moon of the eighth lun­ar month, Asahna Bucha marks the Buddha’s first preach­ing to his first five dis­ciples. It is also known as Dharma Day. (Dharma refers to the teach­ings of the Buddha.) 

And of course there is Loy Kra­thong in November. 

Loy Kra­thong is pos­sibly the second most well-known fest­iv­al in Thai­l­and after the new year Songkran hol­i­day. Loy means “to float”, Kra­thong refers to the small con­tain­er made of banana leaves that is floated on the water dur­ing the Buddhist festival.

Apart from these fest­ivals, there are mer­it-mak­ing events known as Thod Kratin at the end of Buddhist lent. The rituals of giv­ing are often asso­ci­ated with noisy parades as devotees sing and dance around temples, and flow out onto the roads. 

Thod Kratin in north­east­ern Thai­l­and might integ­rate oth­er cul­tur­al events, such as boat races, as well as temple fairs organ­ised by loc­al monasteries.

There are also spe­cial occa­sions at indi­vidu­al temples, both ancient and mod­ern, such as the spec­tac­u­lar sun­sets that shine through the 15 doors of the Khmer-era Phanom Rung temple in Buri­ram province. This hap­pens only four times a year. 

The Mekong region needs Buddhist travel trails 

A Buddhist travel trail is a sort of guide for inde­pend­ent trav­el­lers that offers inform­a­tion on how to get some­where of sig­ni­fic­ance, where to stay, what to see, what to do, and where to eat veget­ari­an foods etc. 

India and Sri Lanka have well-estab­lished Buddhist travel trails, but I have yet to see this in any of the Mekong countries. 

I think the estab­lish­ment of such trails would be very help­ful to the Buddhist tour­ism niche, and I would sug­gest that each coun­try in the region devel­op its own Buddhist travel trail. They might be integ­rated into a Mekong trail that links all the major Buddhist des­tin­a­tions such as Bagan, Suk­hothai, Siem Reap, and Hue. 

Also see Dav­id Ward-Per­kins’ “GT” Insight
“Per­sua­sion, pack­aging, or path­ways: Which works for vis­it­or dispersion?”

It would also be help­ful for loc­al des­tin­a­tions — cit­ies, provinces, or even regions — to devel­op their own guides for Buddhist travellers. 

Chi­ang Rai in Thai­l­and, for example, would def­in­itely bene­fit. Almost all trav­el­lers to the province vis­it the icon­ic White, Black, and Blue temples. 

Chi­ang Rai offers so much more to Buddhist tour­ism besides these few temples, such as its many ancient Lanna temples as well as the mod­ern Rai Chernt­awan Buddhist Med­it­a­tion Cen­ter which is led by a celebrity monk.

What can tour operators offer in Buddhist-themed packages?

Tour oper­at­ors have much to choose from if they wish to offer Buddhist-themed pack­ages to a poten­tially large market. 

Besides includ­ing temple and fest­iv­al high­lights and the oppor­tun­ity to par­ti­cip­ate in or observe daily Buddhist rituals and activ­it­ies, there are Buddhist retreats of vary­ing intens­it­ies and dur­a­tions that include med­it­a­tion and spir­itu­al well­ness elements. 

Tailored pack­ages might also include meet­ing with or learn­ing from lead­ing monks and abbots in top temples.

Lastly, it is most import­ant for any good edu­ca­tion­al Buddhist travel tour for it to be led by a guide with spe­cial­ist knowledge. 

An expert guide might be a cul­tur­al guru, a schol­ar, or even a monk. Unfor­tu­nately, that may be dif­fi­cult or impossible. Many Mekong-region coun­tries require tour guides to be offi­cially certified. 

Don’t miss oth­er “Good Tour­ism” con­tent tagged with
“Cul­ture, cul­tur­al her­it­age, and his­tory tourism”

Spe­cial­ised tours require a new breed of spe­cial­ist tour guide. 

Tour­ism author­it­ies in the Mekong and its con­stitu­ent des­tin­a­tions should per­haps advoc­ate for more flex­ible laws to allow for expert guides, or help to facil­it­ate spe­cial­isa­tion train­ing for cer­ti­fied pro­fes­sion­al tour guides.

A pro­fes­sion­al tour guide who spe­cial­ises in Buddhist travel will be able to, for example, explain the loc­al con­text and his­tory of the Buddhist faith and high­light the unique archi­tec­ture of a par­tic­u­lar temple or monument. 

Being a tour guide by pro­fes­sion, they will also be able to share gen­er­al know­ledge and insights about a des­tin­a­tion to offer a more roun­ded exper­i­ence to the traveller.

What do you think? Share a short com­ment, anec­dote, or ques­tion below. Or write a “GT” Insight of your own. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion about our travel & tour­ism industry because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

Fea­tured image (top of post): Alms­giv­ing in Luang Pra­bang, Laos. By Daniel March­al (CC0) via Unsplash.

About the author

Jaf­fee Yee is an award-win­ning pub­lish­er and edit­or who has had a highly suc­cess­ful career span­ning more than 40 years work­ing with McGraw-Hill Book Com­pany and CBS Inter­na­tion­al Pub­lish­ing, New York, and later with com­pan­ies he foun­ded, includ­ing Myer Pub­lish­ing Lim­ited Hong Kong and Know­ledge Media Group Thailand.

In addi­tion to numer­ous pub­lic­a­tions, Mr Yee was Edit­or-in-Chief of Asi­an Jew­elry, Asia’s first jew­elry trade magazine launched in 1983, and Asi­an Lib­rar­ies, a schol­arly journ­al for Asia’s lib­rary and inform­a­tion pro­fes­sion­als launched in 1991. 

Jaf­fee also edited The Mekong River: from Source to Sea, a map pub­lished by Odys­sey Hong Kong in 2011, fol­lowed by two oth­er con­sumer and busi­ness magazines, NiHao 你好 in 2013 and Mekong Busi­ness & Travel 湄公商旅 in 2014, as well as the cof­fee table book The BEST of MYANMAR in 2017.

Cur­rently an inde­pend­ent art, media, and travel con­sult­ant based in Chi­ang Rai, Thai­l­and, Jaf­fee serves as chair of PATA Chi­ang Rai Chapter, and as a mem­ber of the Mekong Tour­ism Advis­ory Group. He is also instru­ment­al in organ­ising an Inter­na­tion­al Buddhist Tour­ism Con­fer­ence (IBTC) to be held in Chi­ang Rai.