Singapore continues to be the first most visited destination, but has dipped in preference for leisure and business travellers from India. Only 16 per cent leisure travellers and 11 per cent business travelers have visited Singapore in the last year, as against the 23 per cent for leisure and 15 per cent for business in 2010. These are the latest findings of the India Outbound Travel Monitor 2012, by Nielsen.
The Nielsen India Outbound Travel Monitor is a biennial study carried out across leisure and business travelers in 10 cities in India, with over 2500 respondents across tier I and II cities. Nepal (11 per cent), the United States of America (6 per cent), Bangladesh (6 per cent) and United Kingdom (5 per cent) are the gainers as compared to 2010, basis those countries visited in the last year. Malaysia (8 per cent), Thailand (7 per cent) and UAE (3 per cent) have dropped as visited destinations, while Switzerland comes in as a new entrant in this category. Countries that show a rise in business travel are the US (8 per cent); Malaysia (8 per cent); Australia (5 per cent) and UK (5 per cent).
“Indians are looking to travel and explore beyond their comfort zones, increasingly guided by a healthy sense of adventure and discovery, combined with a healthy spending power. This is attributed to the freely available and accessible information on different destinations, and details on cuisine, tourist spots. This is also balanced with the fact that the Indian traveller is still value conscious and careful when it comes to food habits – and these particular attributes are incorporated in customising experiences for them,” said Dinesh Kapoor, ED, Nielsen India.
The Indian leisure traveller is open to exploring new destinations in Europe, shifting from destinations in South East Asia. 15 per cent of the respondents aspire to travel to Singapore, and 14 per cent to Switzerland. UK (10 per cent), Spain (3 per cent) and New Zealand (3 per cent) are new entrants as aspirational destinations. Over one in five respondents (22 per cent) from tier II cities in the country are keen to explore Nepal, respondents from tier I cities cite Singapore (15 per cent) and Switzerland (15 per cent) as top destinations they are looking to travel to.
64 per cent leisure travelers and 56 per cent business travelers cite search engines and travel websites as the preferred source of information for their travel plans. Seven in ten leisure travelers (70 per cent), actively research and plan trips via internet search engines, up from 57 per cent from 2010. Online travel portals (33 per cent) and travel websites (20 per cent) are also critical sources of information. Travel agencies have reduced in influence from 60 per cent to 35 per cent; while that of tour operators remained the same at 31 per cent. For business travellers, the first preference is use the services of travel agents (28 per cent), while just under one in five respondents (19 per cent) in this category use online travel agents and travel websites.
