Wandering Indians shy away from Wonders

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Mumbai, Mar 24: The Wonders of the World are losing lustre with Indians travellers abroad with only 8% preferring to spend vacations at such destinations, says a report.

A recent travel report released by Kuoni Travel titled ‘Kuoni Travel Report India 2007’ indicates that a chunk of Indian leisure travellers prefer to go to destinations with beaches, spas, theme parks and hill resorts rather than ones with the Wonders or historical places. But foreign tourists visiting India have places of historical importance on their mind.

The report shows that destinations with historical importance and beaches share the same platform in the minds of foreign travellers planning a tour to India, which is 39%.

“Indians earlier were considered as shopaholics preferring to stay in cities abroad, but are now seen experimenting with spas and adventure sports, among others,” said an official.  

Interestingly, still the choice of destinations by Indian travellers is through word-of-mouth. The report shows that the major source of information about a holiday destination is spread through word-of-mouth despite other means of communication existing in the country. Only 8% read about a particular destination on the Internet while 87% of them rely on the word-of-mouth.

As per the report, destinations like Singapore and Malaysia have made key inroads into a hitherto western stronghold. In the list of top 20 destinations, Singapore stands at second position just after the US and Malaysia is sixth. Other preferred destinations include countries like the UK, Switzerland, Australia, Malaysia, Europe, Mauritius, Seychelles, Dubai and Thailand. The total outbound spending from India has increased from $ 1 billion in 1995 to $ 7.6 billion. The report expects the spending to cross $ 28 billion-mark (at current price levels) by 2020. During this period, the total outbound tourists from India are expected to be around 20 million, with at least 50% of them in the leisure segment. In 2006, leisure was 20% of the total outbound tourists from India.

With around 25 million Indians holding valid passports and about six million who actually travel abroad, India is likely to continue to remain one of the most important source markets for outbound tourism over the next two decades.