BULLETINS

The recent survey by ICICI Lombard on Leisure Travel Trends for 2014 was about the difference in behaviour among travellers when it comes to international versus domestic travel. The study was based on a sample size of 1063 travellers across five cities and reveals the changing pattern in Indian Traveller’s priorities, both overseas and domestic.

Following are some survey findings.

Frequency of Travel

As per the survey Indians are travelling habitually for leisure across international and domestic circuits. While 25 per cent respondents have increased the frequency of their foreign trips in the past 3 – 5 years, almost 30 percent have done so in case of domestic circuits. Off-season discounts were driving this behaviour for 39 per cent international travellers. In contrast, unplanned trip was the major reason behind more frequent domestic tours for 57 percent respondents.

Duration of Travel

As with more frequent travel, domestic travellers also enjoyed longer vacations (27 percent respondents) within the country compared to overseas trips (19 percent respondents) in the past 3-5 years. In a clear indicator of the conservative spending mentality, nearly 90 percent respondents opting for international and domestic travel utilised personal savings, staying away from loans or any other form of funding for their tour expenses.

Purchase Behaviour – Tour bookings

According to the survey,  even though Indians being the world’s third largest internet using population, still rely on travel agents for ticket purchase for their overseas (85 percent) and domestic (78 per cent) leisure trips. Interestingly, while only 4 per cent of international travellers booked their overseas travel through online travel portals, as much as 20 percent of domestic travellers used online travel portals for booking their trips – a factor of comfort with the destination when it comes to domestic tours.

Purchase Behaviour – Travel Insurance

Indians clearly give more importance to travel insurance for international tours compared to domestic trips. The survey results show that while taking leisure trips, higher number of Indians purchased overseas travel insurance (38%) as compared to domestic travel (4%). Concerns over medical exigencies and baggage loss were the key reasons behind purchasing overseas travel insurance.

Among those who didn’t purchase an overseas travel insurance policy, an alarming 50 % felt that purchasing the same is unnecessary if one already has some other insurance policy. For the uninsured domestic travellers nearly 60% didn’t see the need to buy a policy given the short flight distance to the destination.

During last year favourite Asian destinations were Singapore (33%), UAE (28%) and Thailand (27%) whereas the top 3 domestic destinations travelled to by air were Goa (27%), New Delhi (24%) and Mumbai (22%).