The Sukkur–Multan motorway (M5) in Pakistan, which connects the city of Sukkur in northern Sindh with the city of Multan in southern Punjab, opened in 2019. In this report, the authors examine the private and social welfare effects of the M5 on the two cities’ religious tourism sectors. Using business and social performance indicators, they assess components of the religious tourism supply chain through interviews with regional service providers.

The Religious Tourism Supply Chain Along the Sukkur–Multan Motorway in Pakistan

A Case Study

Rafiq Dossani, Mustafa Sayed, Umar Farooq, Zohan Hasan Tariq

ResearchPublished Feb 26, 2025

The Sukkur–Multan motorway (M5) in Pakistan, which connects the city of Sukkur in northern Sindh with the city of Multan in southern Punjab, opened in 2019. In this report, the authors examine the private and social effects that the M5 has had on the two cities’ religious tourism sectors since its opening. Using key business performance indicators (KBPIs), the authors assess selected components of the religious tourism supply chain through in-person interviews with regional service providers. The authors then aggregated provider responses to infer key social performance indicators and compare them with national averages. Through this research, the authors seek to understand how new supply chains develop around a transport corridor and affect the value added at each node of the supply chain. 

The authors found that positive private and social benefits resulted in both cities from the reshaping of the supply chain with the opening of the M5. Specifically, private benefits include an increase in access provided by the motorway, investments in online services, and specialization within the supply chain. The public benefits of the M5 include an improvement in the economic growth of the Sukkur and Multan districts relative to the country and an improvement in the economic growth of the poorer city, Sukkur, relative to that of Multan.

Key Findings

Both cities experienced mostly positive changes in KBPIs on each node of the supply chain as a result of the M5

  • The M5 increased traffic between the cities and contributed to a rise in overnight stays in both cities.
  • Online access enables firms to offer more-sophisticated and more-efficient services, such as advance bookings and transactions via online payment systems.
  • The M5 created opportunities for greater specialization within the supply chain.
  • There has been a rise in the share of businesses catering to upper-income clients across the supply chain, a rise in the share of the auto rental business in Sukkur relative to Multan, and a rearrangement of clientele in the auto parts business in both cities.
  • The economic growth of the poorer city, Sukkur, improved relative to Multan’s, and both cities’ economic growth exceeded that of the national average.
  • Both cities saw a rise in employment and financial returns to labor.

The provider data suggest one negative outcome and provide insufficient evidence for two socially important supply chain components

  • Lower-income groups are losing access to the services of hotels and other regulated service providers and have had to turn to informal service providers, where they face higher social costs, such as higher crime rates.
  • The data to assess the environmental effects of the shift to bus services from cars and the social benefits of the increased business for handicraft makers, who are mainly women, are insufficient.

Recommendations

  • Policymakers should consider developing regulation to improve lodging for lower-income religious tourists.
  • Policymakers should conduct a review of transport policies to ensure that transport systems are competitive and environmentally friendly.
  • Policymakers should offer support for makers of handicrafts to ensure their fair share of benefits is being received through the supply chain. Such support might include training of manufacturing labor to improve productivity, subsidized access to capital, tours offered to visitors of Sukkur and Multan to see where handicrafts are made and to buy directly from their producers, and subsidized internet access for manufacturers to enable direct sales to consumers and more efficient sourcing.
  • Policymakers should examine the use of the internet among the more vulnerable components of the supply chain, such as informal boarding houses and non-luxury buses run by small businesses, and consider supporting internet access and other digitization services.
  • Policymakers should continue to monitor the number of skilled workers and ensure the workforce is trained to provide more-sophisticated services to meet future client demands. This is important both from an equity viewpoint and from the viewpoint of sustaining the businesses into the future.

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RAND Style Manual

Dossani, Rafiq, Mustafa Sayed, Umar Farooq, and Zohan Hasan Tariq, The Religious Tourism Supply Chain Along the Sukkur–Multan Motorway in Pakistan: A Case Study, RAND Corporation, RR-A3333-1, 2025. As of April 8, 2025: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA3333-1.html

Chicago Manual of Style

Dossani, Rafiq, Mustafa Sayed, Umar Farooq, and Zohan Hasan Tariq, The Religious Tourism Supply Chain Along the Sukkur–Multan Motorway in Pakistan: A Case Study. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2025. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA3333-1.html.
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