Indians are taking longer holidays thanks to off-season discounts, high income

Mumbai: Off-season discounts have led to Indians travelling more frequently since there is a 25 per cent growth in foreign trips during the past three to five years and almost 30 per cent on the domestic circuit, according to a survey report.

“While 25 per cent respondents have increased the frequency of their foreign trips during the past three to five years, almost 30 per cent have done so on the domesticcircuit,” a ICICI Lombard Travel Trends 2014 survey report released here today said.

While off-season discounts drive this behaviour for 39 per cent international travellers, unplanned trips are the key reason behind more frequent domestic tours for 57 per cent of respondents, the report said.

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“Rise in disposable income (63 per cent) and discounts (49 per cent) drives longer duration stay on both domestic and international circuits,” it said.

“The survey reveals interesting trends in terms of Indians travelling more frequently and on longer duration trips, driven by higher disposable income and discounts. Despite increased travel behaviour, purchase of travel insurance especially for travel to Asian countries and in the domestic sector remains extremely low,” ICICI Lombard GIC Chief, Underwriting and Claims, Sanjay Datta said.

The survey covered 1,063 respondents across a mix of metros and smaller cities, including Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Chandigarh who have travelled tointernational as well as domestic locations.

With more frequent travel, domestic travellers also enjoyed longer vacations (27 per cent) within the country compared to overseas trips (19 per cent) in the last three to five years, the survey said.

The survey revealed that despite being the world’s third largest Internet using population, 85 per cent of Indians still rely on travel agents to purchase tickets for their overseas trips, while 78 per cent do so for domestic leisure trips.

Interestingly, the survey found that while only 4 per cent of international travellers booked their overseas travel through online travel portals, as much as 20 per cent of domestic travellers used online travel portals to book their trips.

It revealed that Indians give more importance to travel insurance for international tours compared to domestic trips. While undertaking leisure trips, a higher number ofIndians purchased overseas travel insurance (38 per cent) compared to domestic travel insurance (4 per cent).

Among those who did not purchase an overseas travel insurance policy, 50 per cent felt that purchasing the same is unnecessary if one already has some other insurance policy.

For uninsured domestic travellers, nearly 60 per cent did not see the need to buy a policy given the short flight distance to their destinations, the report said.

PTI