For Indians travelling abroad this century, local culture is more attractive than landmarks

When Anirudh Rajan, 31, went to Europe in October 2013, with his friends on a boys-only trip, the plan was to take the train from Prague to Budapest. Midway, he and his friends impulsively decided to get down at Bratislava, he recalls. The Slovakian capital is hardly on the usual itinerary for Indian tourists and when Rajan and his friends toured the city, they were, he says, “pleasantly surprised”. “The people were down-to-earth and the booze was cheaper,” he laughs. They ended up spending two nights in the city before continuing their journey.

This wasn’t his first trip abroad; that was in 1998 as part of a group tour with his family to Southeast Asia. Rajan, however, is adamant he’ll never go on a group tour again. It’s too regimented for his style. Wake up at 5 am to board the tour bus and visit landmark after landmark? Nah, he prefers to stay at hostels, experience local food and hang out with the locals instead.

Komal Lath, 30, agrees with that thought. When she went to Portugal, she went beyond Lisbon to Cascais, a small municipality that boasts of what she calls “Harry Potter-like castles and stunning beach views”. “While walking, we chanced upon this bay called Boca do inferno which I think every person going to Portugal cannot miss!” she says excitedly.

Lath says she was bitten by the travel bug at a very young age as her parents were avid travellers. When she travels abroad, whether it is to South East Asia or Europe, she always looks for a deep experience at one place rather than go on a quick jaunt that covers several stops in a short time.

Rajan and Lath are not the only ones to do so.

According to Thomas C Thottathil, formerly the editor of Travel Trends Today magazine and who has been a part of the travel industry for almost two decades, the preferences of Indians travelling abroad have changed over the past several years.

“Ten to fifteen years back, people would go on a group tour that, say, covered five European countries in 10 nights,” he says. “The viewpoint was to maximise the bang for their buck. Tour operators would have fully loaded kitchen caravans that will serve Indian food. Nowadays, Indians are more evolved travellers. Most of them have already done the group tour and now want to do things at their own pace. They want immersive experiences where they soak in a destination for 10 days.” Kitchen caravans have been replaced by culinary holidays, landmark visits by self-driving holidays and luxury hotels by homestays.

A Summer Trend survey conducted by Expedia India in 2015 found that “a lot of Indians are looking beyond London-Paris-New York and exploring destinations like Latvia (7 percent), Bahamas, Romania, Brazil (6 percent each), Panama (5 percent) and Cyprus (3 percent),” said Manmeet Ahluwalia, marketing head, Expedia India. “They have started looking at exploring destinations offering cruises, theme parks, snow-capped mountains, spa retreats, nature park and safari.”

There are quite a few reasons for this change.

Thottathil attributes it to the opening up of the Indian economy and the increase in basic travel quota (BTQ) from $50 to the current $10,000. As countries began to recognise the importance of the Indian traveller, it became easier to get visas. “We also have more travel channels like National Geographic. People are influenced by the media and also by movies which are shot abroad,” says Thottathil.

Rajan believes it is not only because Indians’ spending power has increased but also because there is a lot of information available on the Web. “When my friends and I go on our own, we do a lot of research on the place, what to see and do, and find hostels or AirBnBs to stay at so we can experience local food and the flavor of the place; experience the way of life in that place. A place like Rome cannot be done in one day, the way it is in a group tour. With more information coming our way, we can customise our vacation.” Thanks to technology like Google Maps, they can even navigate complicated train systems without a local guide.

When Lath went to Rome, she didn’t have a planned itinerary; she just had her Google Maps with her as she walked all over the city. “When we were in Prague, people kept recommending places to see and things to do,” she says and they followed the locals’ recommendations instead of an itinerary. What she does do before embarking on any trip is visit Trip Advisor and read blogs extensively. She also has the Zomato app to find good local food. She has been to 18 countries and wants to see a total of 50 in the next five years, but she refuses to do a quick group tour along the lines of ‘five countries in seven days’. “My parents did that,” she says. “I want to go to a place and soak it in.”

Indians’ outbound travel has now become such a huge market that even the UN World Tourism Organisation has sat up and taken notice.

A 2009 report by the UN WTO and the European Travel Commission titled ‘ The Indian Outbound Travel Market with Special Insight into the Image of Europe as a Destination ’ found that international tourism expenditure by Indians has grown from US$ 1.3 billion in 1997 to US$ 8.2 billion in 2007. It also found that the Indian outbound travel market has grown from 3.7 million in 1997 to 9.8 million international departures in 2007.

That’s not all. The report found that the majority of visitors will have previously travelled abroad at least once. Potential first-time visitors are primarily motivated by a culture/sightseeing holiday while repeat visitors are additionally motivated by “touring/driving holiday, snow/ski holiday and holiday in the mountains. Majority of the potential visitors are likely to undertake a multi-country vacation in Europe.”

In another report titled, ‘ India’s tourism performance ’, the UN WTO found, “Outbound travel by Indian nationals rose to 12.99 million in 2010, 17.4 percent above the 2009 level.”

The potential in the Indian market has not gone unnoticed by other countries’ tourism boards. They are not only adapting to meet the increase in numbers but also to the change in preferences.

According to New Zealand’s official tourism website , the country saw 44,112 visitors from India in the year ending October 2015, up 22 percent on the previous 12 months. Indians prefer to travel between October and June, which is a boon to NZ as it otherwise is shoulder season for them.

In October this year, Tourism New Zealand announced that they have chosen Siddharth Malhotra to be their brand ambassador in India and show that New Zealand has more to offer than the verdant green landscapes seen in Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai.

“We have glaciers and rainforests, food and wine, and Maori culture and they are all easily accessible,” says Steven Dixon, regional manager, South and South East Asia, Tourism New Zealand.

Even Spain is seeing promise in the Indian market. Sixty eight thousand Indians visited the country between January and September 2015, and if the figure reaches 100,000 by the end of the year then that will be a 10 percent increase compared to the previous year, Ignacio Ducasse Gutierrez, director, Tourism Office of Spain, Mumbai, told Travel News Digest .

As for Australia, India is the country’s eighth largest inbound market for arrivals, according to a factsheet that Tourism Australia shared with Firstpost. Total Indian arrivals for the year ended September 2015 were 226,300, an increase of 19 percent relative to the same period previous year.

The tourism board is responding with special holiday packages and a targeted marketing campaign. Says Nishant Kashikar, country manager, India and Gulf, Tourism Australia, “With the rise of Indian economy, great Indian middle class, and increased disposable income, Indians have now become more experiential and are embracing newer holiday ideas. Considering the trend, tastes and the preferences of the affluent Indian diaspora, we have introduced products such as self-drive, luxury lodges of Australia, food and wine-centric gastronomic tours, adventure and romantic escapades. Over the years, our marketing campaigns have evolved with new messaging to address the needs of different travel segments. Focused campaigns such as There’s nothing like Australia, Restaurant Australia, Aquatic and Coastal continue to build Australia’s appeal amongst the potential long-haul travellers.”

Many countries are now allowing Indian tourists to drive in the country with an Indian driver’s license, thereby catering to travellers interested in self-drive holidays. The list is long but it includes Great Britain, France, New Zealand, Australia and Germany.

Manoharan Periasamy, director of Tourism Malaysia - India, says that a large number of Indians visiting Malaysia still prefer to hit the beach with family in a time-honoured tradition, but that’s because unlike Europe or Australia, a trip to Malaysia is for many Indians the first time they are travelling abroad. Even then, the number of visitors looking for experiential holidays is steadily increasing year after year.

“We now have a two-pronged strategy: without neglecting the mass market, we are focusing more on strategies, talking to wedding planners to promote Malaysia as a wedding destination, and showcasing seafood and adventure holidays,” says Periasamy.

Also, both tourists and the tourism board are going beyond shopping in Kuala Lumpur; they are exploring other options such as spelunking and snorkelling in Langkawi, scuba diving in Kiki, and hiking nature trails in the islands of Sabah and Sarawak.

Even tour operators are now responding to the change in travel preferences. Cox & Kings, for instance, has a package that lets you camp in the Amazon Rainforest at Peru for four days. Previously, says Thottathil, who is now the head of communications at Cox & Kings, they organised Signature Holidays where they tied up with MasterChef for culinary holidays. A group of 20 to 25 travellers embarked on a holiday accompanied by a MasterChef who’ll take them to the local market and teach them to cook local dishes, apart from the usual sightseeing.

Thomas Cook offers a package for the Dubai Shopping Festival with the additional incentive of substantial shopping discounts. The firm also offers personalised tours to Thailand, Australia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong and Jordan, among other countries. Their website helps you plan your own trip, an option that Kesari Tours too gives you, thanks to their collaboration with Strawberi.

Tour operators are also targeting senior citizens and female travellers with special tours that pay attention to their interests.

Tour operators’ ability to adapt to the changing times is the only reason Asmita Palshikar, 44, still opts for group tours when she travels to South East Asia with her husband and their daughter Sanskruti. “They have tie-ups with hotels and we can get vegetarian food,” says Palshikar. “Otherwise, it is very difficult. Once in Hong Kong we bought a packet of wafers and then saw that it has chicken in it.”

Palshikar loves to travel because she finds people outside India are “very disciplined”. “Even while boarding the local train, they stand in a queue,” she says. She finds group tours restrictive as they follow a timetable and give travellers limited time in one place. “If it wasn’t for the food issue, I would like to just take a map and travel.” Which is what she plans to do on her next trip – to Australia.

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