Religious places a mixture of pleasure and leisure.

Looking at the developing one may think that science has gained hands over religion. But looking at the statistics of tourists in Maharashtra in the year 2011-2012 this belief seems to be a rumor. Previous year, among the tourists in Maharashtra the highest number of tourist were on their trip to religious places. It seems that people in the 21st century have found leisure in devotion. There are many Devotional spotes that tourist interests like Thanjavur, Trichy, Thiruvanamalai, Vaishnovdevi Temple etc: For more about Vaishnovdevi Temple,

 Recently, Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation released a report in which it mentioned that Shridi-Shanishignapur welcomed more than one crore tourists from October 2011 to March 2012 whereas the famous historical monument - ‘Gateway of India’ could bag only around five million visitors during same time. People showed less interest to sail off the Arabian Sea to Elephant caves; and only one sixth of visitors made their way for the Ajanta caves as compared to visitors who awaited for their turns for darshan in sacred Haji Ali Dargah. Comparatively, visitors to wildlife sanctuaries, heritage places and beaches were just a handful.

Even though in 2011-2012 the state has made a gaint leap of 15.70 crore visitors from 11.47 crore visitors compared to previous year, the number of foreign tourist has gone down by 4%. The maximum number of visitors were from adjacent states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh followed by other states like Rajasthan, New Delhi and Karnataka.

Trying to analyze the fall of foreign tourists in the state, a senior MTDC official said that due to fear of the attacks that occurred in past people prefer to go to places where they can enjoy themselves without the hunt of any sort of attack. He added that the 26/11 attack and the recent Germany Bakery Blast in Pune have left threat in the heart of people looking to have a trip to Mumbai. Foreigners who visit this elegant and majestic state are mainly from USA, Australia, UK and UAE. People prefer to spend time without threat to life in their back head.