Among the top pilgirmage destinations in Karnataka, Dharmasthala took the top spot.
Credit: DH Photo
Bengaluru: City-based bus operators saw a rise in demand for temple town routes in 2025, with a major chunk of bus bookings from Bengaluru being made to these places.
Since the Covid-induced lockdowns, leisure travel is yet to bounce back, they told DH.
The other most common bus travel objective remains people travelling back home after studying or working in the city.
This year, the most popular bus travel destinations were Tirupati, Sabarimala, Madurai, Udupi, Thrissur, Dharmasthala and Vijayawada.
At SRS Travels, pilgrimage routes made up 55% of the bookings this year.
“Leisure and festival travel makes up 35% of the bookings, and the remaining 10% can be attributed to corporate bookings,” said Balakrishna Rai, manager (operations).
At Siddaganga Travels and Logistics, about 90% of bookings this year were to temple towns — with Dharmasthala taking the top spot.
As per another popular bus operator, while a majority of Bengaluru residents prefer buses for long distance travel, bookings for tourist attractions such as Kodagu, Chikkamagaluru and Hampi remain limited.
“We don’t see many bookings for these locations within Karnataka, so we run limited buses on these routes. However, the one destination that did well this year for both temple tourism and leisure is Udupi,” he said.
The Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) too has seen a steady demand for Karnataka temple towns from female passengers in Bengaluru since the introduction of the Shakti Scheme, shared an official. “Mostly the demand is for Dharmasthala and Kukke Subrahmanya temple,” he told DH.
Ticketing platform redBus also witnessed a rise in demand for pilgrimage destinations.
“In 2025, we saw an increase in travel to pilgrimage destinations, pan-India. Pilgrimage trips form a meaningful part of Bengaluru’s bus demand. Around 11% of the total bookings are associated with religious travel, with popular pilgrimage corridors including Tirupati, Madurai, Nellore, Ernakulam, Vijayawada, Udupi and Thrissur,” said Prakash Sangam, CEO, redBus.
Leisure travel accounted for only 5% of the travel bookings, he said. Prakash added that 93% of bookings this year were made on routes exceeding 250 km.