More Indians holidaying abroad for New Year

This winter outbound travel in India is set to hit a new high. As competitive pricing and value-for-money deals favour the holiday traffic movement towards Southeast Asia and South Asia, places like Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Sri Lanka are gearing up to receive Indian revellers to their shores for New Year. Travel industry analysts are, therefore, banking on a 10-15% increase in the Indian outbound figure during December 2006, as compared to last year. High disposable incomes, greater awareness levels and easy availability of travel loans on international destinations are just some of the factors responsible for this sudden upsurge in outbound travel. Travel Agents’ Association of India (TAAI) vice-president Rajji Rai said “The opening up of Indian skies and aggressive promotion by various tourism boards has given a huge leg-up to outbound travel.

For the winter, Indians are flocking to places like Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Bali. The middle-range packages, priced between Rs 30,000 and Rs 75,000 are doing particularly well.” According to Tourism Malaysia director Manoharan, “Going by the buoyant trend in the Indian arrivals, we anticipate more than 2,000 Indians to celebrate and participate in the New Year carnival festivities on December 31.” Singapore Tourism, too, has launched special FIT (free individual traveller) packages for Indian tourists for its Christmas in the Tropics celebrations. “India is one of our top five markets and with average spends of S$1,200 for four days and five nights, Indian travellers are also among the biggest spenders,” said Singapore Tourism Board area director (northern India) Kenneth Lim.

“During the time of winter festivity spread over mid-December and January, we are expecting Indian arrivals to surge by 18-20%, since now even Air Sahara has started flights to Colombo,” said Sri Lanka Tourism destination manager Maadhuri Verma. “The destination has already received 110,453 Indians till October 2006, and this number is expected to touch 130,000 by the year end.” Other destinations like Korea and Switzerland are, on their part, focusing on luring Indian travellers, FITs in particular, with the promise of adventure holidays during the winter. Korea, for instance, is hosting the Fun Ski and Snow Festival, where skiing, snowboarding and outdoor natural hot spring spas are among the attractions on offer. A three days-two nights package is priced at $690.

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