How seasonal is tourism within India and do you see this changing at all?
A
It is seasonal . The peak months are April to June, and then October to December gets busy for domestic and outbound tourism. For inbound tourism, October through March is quite busy.
Q
If Indians aren't traveling within India, where are they going for leisure travel?
A
The places they go for Leisure outside India are the Far East (Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong), Australia, New Zealand, UK and Europe, South Africa, Egypt and, of course, Dubai is very popular.
Q
It often seems that people with the means to travel outside of their own country do travel to other countries rather than getting to know their own country. What would keep Indians traveling within India as opposed to going to places like Dubai, Thailand or Europe?
A
The key aspects which will encourage Indians traveling within India are cheap flights (low cost carriers like Air Deccan, Go Air, SpiceJet, etc. have already started the trend), decent budget hotels (the current concern is that hotels are out pricing themselves, especially the 4/5 stars), also long weekends is another trend wherein Indians are driving to motor-able tourist spots, and theme-based aspects like spa, adventure, etc. will help domestic tourism potential.
Manoj Gursahani is the founder and chairman of Travelmartindia.com, which is India’s first e-commerce travel portal with a brick-and-mortar support center. Gursahani was the Founder Secretary of the Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) and has served on a variety of travel forums including the Lufthansa Advisory Board and TAFI’ s Think Tank. He is also a member of a number of chambers of commerce and social and cultural clubs, including Rotary. A frequent television commentator on the topic of tourism and technology, Gursahani has chaired seminars on the impact of credit card fraud on e-commerce and has also written several articles on tourism and technology.
