Mumbai: Off-season discounts have led to Indians travelling more frequently since there is a 25 percent growth in foreign trips during the past three to five years and almost 30 percent on the domestic circuit, according to a survey report.
"While 25 percent respondents have increased the frequency of their foreign trips during the past three to five years, almost 30 percent have done so on the domestic circuit," a ICICI Lombard Travel Trends 2014 survey report released here on Thursday said.
While off-season discounts drive this behaviour for 39 percent international travellers, unplanned trips are the key reason behind more frequent domestic tours for 57 percent of respondents, the report said.
"Rise in disposable income (63 percent) and discounts (49 percent) drives longer duration stay on both domestic and international circuits," it said.
"The survey reveals interesting trends in terms of Indians travelling more frequently and on longer duration trips, driven by higher disposable income and discounts. Despite increased travel behaviour, purchase of travel insurance especially for travel to Asian countries and in the domestic sector remains extremely low," ICICI Lombard GIC Chief, Underwriting and Claims, Sanjay Datta said.
The survey covered 1,063 respondents across a mix of metros and smaller cities, including Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Chandigarh who have travelled to international as well as domestic locations.
With more frequent travel, domestic travellers also enjoyed longer vacations (27 percent) within the country compared to overseas trips (19 percent) in the last three to five years, the survey said.
The survey revealed that despite being the world's third largest Internet using population, 85 percent of Indians still rely on travel agents to purchase tickets for their overseas trips, while 78 percent do so for domestic leisure trips.
Interestingly, the survey found that while only 4 percent of international travellers booked their overseas travel through online travel portals, as much as 20 percent of domestic travellers used online travel portals to book their trips.
It revealed that Indians give more importance to travel insurance for international tours compared to domestic trips.
While undertaking leisure trips, a higher number of Indians purchased overseas travel insurance (38 percent) compared to domestic travel insurance (4 percent).
Among those who did not purchase an overseas travel insurance policy, 50 percent felt that purchasing the same is unnecessary if one already has some other insurance policy.
For uninsured domestic travellers, nearly 60 percent did not see the need to buy a policy given the short flight distance to their destinations, the report said.
