HolidayIQ, one of India’s largest travel community and Holidays recommendation engines released HolidayIQ Insights: Festival Tourism. International holidays preference grows by 30 per cent which reveals top ten International destinations including Singapore, Dubai, Maldives, Bhutan, Thailand, Mauritius, Sri Lanka, Bali, Malaysia and Australia may beat domestic holiday this Diwali long weekend holiday.

Hari Nair, founder and CEO, HolidayIQ said, “Indian Travellers are holidaying like never before and Festival Tourism has taken off in India. Every possible occasion is now a reason to travel. Generally, a holiday is planned 30 days in advance, however on HolidayIQ we see people starting holiday research for the festive season very early, as early as 90 days before the trip to capture the best value for money and hotel availability in sought after destinations. Till a couple of years ago festival celebrations were limited to family homes, today the entire families travel together for the celebration. This year another trend is of course the popularity of mobile apps and extent of research. There is close to 300 per cent increase in people reading reviews before making a hotel booking and over 75 per cent research is done via mobile devices.”

Key highlights include:

Basis the HolidayIQ insight on long weekend holidays vs the Diwali holidays taken into consideration, international destinations have scored over domestic travel with many people opting to fly out of the country.

– Diwali is the most favored festival for travel to international destinations followed by Gandhi Jayanthi, Dussehra, Bakrid and Ganesh Chaturhti

– Couple travellers account for 38.37 per cent of the share of holidays, following them are family travellers (32.09 per cent), larger groups (26.54 per cent) and single travellers (three per cent)

– Travellers from India reported a spending of an average of INR 82,000 in 2014. Looking at 2015 spend, this number increased to INR 1,00,000. Trip planning was initially done 77 days in advance in 2014 while number increased to 90 days in 2015. The total trip length was 10 days in 2014 and has increased by 14 days in 2015, the study added

– Top Ten Domestic destinations include – Andaman & Nicobar, Kerala, Manali, Goa, Shimla, Kashmir, Gangtok, Sikkim, Darjeeling and Himachal Pradesh

– The average amount spent on travel to domestic destinations has increased by 19 per cent in 2015. The value is INR 32, 467 in 2015 and was INR 27, 274 in 2014.

– The report draws comparisons on the number of trips planned to international and domestic destinations, unveils that the number of trips planned to international destinations has increased by 30 per cent in 2015. While the number of trips planned for domestic travel has increased by 25 per cent in 2015.