Indians more intent on travelling to newer destinations

The Indian leisure traveller is now more open to exploring newer destinations, reveals the latest edition of the Nielsen India Outbound Monitor.
A study done by the Nielsen Company in association with the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), shows that destinations such as China, Maldives, Indonesia, the African continent and even neighbouring Bangladesh, have witnessed an increase in interest amongst Indian travellers as destinations they plan to visit in the future.
While on the current list of most visited destinations, Singapore remains the top destination for both, the business and leisure traveller, but its dominance has diminished since 2008.
“The diversification in destinations indicates a greater sense of adventurism and discovery that should be heartening for tourism as a whole, and a clear symptom of a confident Indian consumer mimicking their country’s confidence and prominence," Surekha Poddar, executive director, The Nielsen Company, said, adding that the Indian traveller is set to become a prized possession as potential spending power and disposition to travel to new countries increases.
In terms of trips taken in the last year, Singapore’s share based on travellers indicating their most recent trip taken, has reduced to 24 per cent from 32 per cent in 2008. Similarly, for business travel its share has fallen from 25 per cent in 2008 to 15 per cent in 2010. Malaysia ranks second for leisure travel and Dubai for business travel.
Countries that have shown a rise in business traffic from India include Japan, China, and Sri Lanka. On the whole, Asian countries account for 76 per cent of leisure travel by Indians and 63 per cent for business travel. Regions such as Europe attract a higher percentage of business traffic (14 per cent) rather than leisure (10 per cent).
The top reasons which drive destination choice for leisure travellers are visiting friends/ relatives (26 per cent), range of leisure and entertainment activities (18 per cent), and scenic/natural beauty of the destination (10 per cent).
Visiting friends/ relatives is the most cited reason for older travellers and their destinations largely tend to be USA and the UK. The corporate segment which forms the bulk of business travellers, choose destinations based on perceived business conduciveness for conferences and off-sites.
“Countries competing for Indian globetrotters can take definitive cues from the drivers of destination decision-making. By showcasing their receptivity to visitors and a variety of recreational facilities ‘country’ marketers can hope to become the destination of choice,” said Poddar.
Among places that leisure travellers plan to travel to, there seems to be a significant shift to newer destinations such as China, Indonesia and Africa, amongst others. While most outbound travellers from India belong to the affluent, well educated segment of urban India, there are some differences in the profile of travelers based on the size of the town or city.
With the growth of India as a source market for the travel industry, there is an increasingly greater focus on targeting the Indian traveller. One of the most critical observations is that the Indian traveller is not a homogenous entity. Apart from the natural segments of those travelling for business or leisure, there are key sub-segments across tiers of towns and different life stages and work profile. Travel motivations also differ in each of these sub-segments as do their planning and their choices,” added Poddar.
The Indian traveller remains as value conscious as ever. With growing choices at home, Indians have not really expanded their travel budgets. Overall, travel expenditure has remained the same as 2008 among leisure travelers. Business travellers have however, seen a significant reduction in overall trip expenses.
According to the study, the average trip cost for the entire family is around $3663. As the average group comprises two travellers, it works out to $1645 per traveller. Flight and accommodation account for around 45 per cent of costs and the rest is available for the traveller to apportion across other expenses like shopping, food, recreational/ sightseeing activities and communication. Of the discretionary spend, shopping gets the lion’s share and outbound tourists spend $1,000 on an average on shopping, per family.
Thai Airways emerged as the top airline among leisure travellers in terms of customer satisfaction followed by Jet Airways and Malaysia Airlines. For business travellers, Singapore Airlines tops the list, followed by Emirates and Malaysia Airlines.

The travel agents
KATHMANDU: For travellers booking via travel agents, small local travel agents combined account for a little over a quarter of all bookings. Among the Indian players, the Online Travel Agents (OTAs), Yatra and Make My Trip, and travel agencies SOTC and Thomas Cook together, account for the bulk of bookings. Leisure travellers who booked through SOTC gave it the highest satisfaction ratings while business travelers said they preferred booking through Thomas Cook the most.