Indian visiting Asia Pacific nations to rise 16 fold by 2030: study

People are developing a broader range of aspirations, behaviours, expectations from travel experience

By 2030, the number of Indians travelling to Asia-Pacific countries is likely to increase 16 fold as a much greater variety of people will be travelling, for a more divergent set of reasons.

People are having a much broader range of aspirations, behaviours and expectations from travel experience, thus creating huge opportunities in the travel sector, a study has found.

Also, the travel expenditure by Indian travellers, in today's dollars terms, would increase from USD 6 billion to over USD 70 billion, said the new pan Asia Pacific study 'Shaping the future of travel in Asia Pacific: The big FOUR travel effects' commissioned by Amadeus, a leading technology partner for the global travel industry.

"India represents the next frontier of the Asia Pacific travel market. Over the next 20 years, the number of outbound travellers from India would grow exponentially to a point where India would be one of the top outbound travel markets in the region.

"From the 4.5 million arrivals to Asia Pacific destinations in 2011, it would increase to almost 70 million by 2030. This represents a huge opportunity for travel providers across the region," it said.

The study outlined four key themes that would drive significant change in the Asia Pacific travel over the period to 2030.

It said that the social, geopolitical and technological changes would have a fundamental effect on Asia Pacific.

Driven both by a narrowing of the wealth gap between developed and emerging economies and greater liberalisation of trade and travel, the travel behaviour would become more divergent, it said.

There would be huge growth in the numbers of business travellers, as Indian companies were becoming more internationalised and strong growth would be witnessed in the rise in numbers of women business travellers, it said.

On the leisure side, the study found that the strong growth would be coming from younger travellers and from those visiting friends and relatives (VFR).

But compared to their counterparts in other Asia Pacific
countries, the study found that Indian travellers generally travel on a budget, spending just over USD 1,000 per trip, only a quarter of the average amount spent, for example, by Australian travellers.
    
With the majority of Indians travelling on a budget, it would create a driving demand for budget airline capacity and budget accommodation, it said.
    
However, at the other end of the scale, the number of luxury travellers from India would also increase significantly as the number of high net worth individuals (HNWIs) grew by over 20 per cent compared to 2009.
    
In 2010, India joined the top 12 countries globally by number of High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs), with an estimated 153,000 HNWIs.

"India continues to experience strong economic growth over the next 20 years, we anticipate that the number of HNWIs will exceed one million by 2030, placing India third in the region after China and Japan," the study said.

This creates a need for significant significant investment in infrastructure across the region in order to tap this potential adequately, it said.

The study also found that Indian travellers were behaving in different ways and had become more confident in their travel decision-making, as there were higher incidence of self-management of travel facilitated by the social media.

Also they were found to be using mobile devices more frequently through the travel process, driving travel service providers to interact with Indian travellers in new ways, it added.