The UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) predicts that India will account for 50 million outbound tourists by 2020. Operators say that at present around 25 million tourists from India travel abroad would double from current levels within the next two years.
The increase of outbound travel in India to 15%-18% annually, the number of passports holders have also increased up to 74 million in a nation of a billion-plus people as of 2017, according to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). With domestic travel becoming more expensive there has been a 3.7-times increase of customers traveling to international destinations as compared to domestic destinations with more about 39 percent more Indians traveling this winter as compared to 2016.
Sharat Dhall, the Chief Operating Officer of Yatra.com said, “This market is growing at a double-digit rate driven by the approximately 7 percent GDP growth over the past few years, increasing middle-class incomes, changing attitudes towards spending, low airfares, group package tours and the easy availability of EMI options on travel bookings.”
On an overall basis, India will be one of the largest outbound travel markets in the world in the next few years but in the meantime, China with the largest population is in the lead, making 130.5 million trips overseas in 2017.
