ETW Staff – Mumbai
ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company has unveiled ‘ICICI Lombard Travel Trends 2014’ survey on the occasion of ‘World Tourism Day’. The survey focuses on revealing the behaviour pattern among travellers when it comes to international versus domestic travel. The survey covered 1063 respondents across a mix of metros and smaller cities i.e. Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Chandigarh who have travelled to international as well as domestic locations.
Sanjay Datta, chief-underwriting and claims, ICICI Lombard GIC, said, “ICICI Lombard’s Travel Trends survey reveals interesting trends in terms of Indians travelling more frequently and on longer duration trips, driven by higher disposable income and discounts. Despite the increased travel behaviour, purchase of travel insurance especially for travel to Asian countries and in the domestic sector remains extremely low. It is important that Indian travellers realise the criticality of availing travel insurance for covering unforeseen risks pertaining to medical emergencies, tour related mishaps such as baggage loss, etc.”
The survey shows that Indians are travelling more frequently for leisure across international and domestic circuits. While 25 per cent respondents have increased the frequency of their foreign trips in the past three to five years, almost 30 per cent have done so in case of domestic circuits. Off-season discounts were driving this behaviour for 39 per cent international travellers. On the other hand, unplanned trip was the key reason behind more frequent domestic tours for 57 per cent respondents.
As with more frequent travel, domestic travellers also enjoyed longer vacations (27 per cent respondents) within the country compared to overseas trips (19 per cent respondents) in the past three to five years. Increase in disposable income (63 per cent) and discount/deals (49 per cent) were driving this behaviour towards longer duration stay for both domestic and international circuits. In a clear indicator of the conservative spending mentality, nearly 90 per cent respondents opting for international and domestic travel utilised personal savings, staying away from loans or any other form of funding for their tour expenses.
The study also reveals that Indians, despite being the world’s third largest internet using population, still rely on travel agents for ticket purchase for their overseas (85 per cent) and domestic (78 per cent) leisure trips. Interestingly, while only four per cent of international travellers booked their overseas travel through online travel portal, as much as 20 per cent of domestic travellers used online travel portals for booking their trips – a factor of comfort with the destination when it comes to domestic tours.
