Mumbai most expensive city for travellers in 2014: TripAdvisor

Jaipur most budget-friendly city, followed by Chandigarh and Pune

For a budget traveler exploring India or for that matter Maharashtra, Mumbai is surely our of their reach. The city that never sleeps has yet again maintained its top slot as the most expensive city for travelers in 2014.

The findings are part of fourth edition of TripIndex brought out by the world's largest travel site, TripAdvisor. Mumbai takes the top spot from Kolkata this year as the most expensive city with a total TripIndex cost of Rs 10771.76.

However, good news for travelers is that Jaipur is the most budget-friendly city, with a total TripIndex cost of Rs 7625.32.

Jaipur has taken this spot from Pune, which was the most budget-friendly city last year. TripIndex is a travel price index of 56 cities across the globe including nine Indian cities.

The index compares the cost of an evening out, taking into account typical costs for two people to enjoy a pre-meal cocktail, a meal out, taxis, and an overnight stay for two during the summer travel months of June to August. The average room rate in Mumbai is one of the highest in India at Rs 6,734.

However, these room rates have fallen from the high of Rs 7,580 in 2013.

At the cost of one night stay in Mumbai, travelers can eat dinner, have cocktails and take a taxi ride in Jaipur. If Mumbai is most expensive in terms of room rates, in the dinner for two category Chennai emerges as the most expensive this year (Rs 3,680.83).

Chennai tool the spot from New Delhi which was at the top last year with Rs 2767.

Globally, London emerged as the most expensive city for a city break for Indians (Rs 31,222.27)-it's almost thrice the cost of Mumbai and four times the cost of Jaipur. In terms of travel (taxi), Oslo was the most expensive city at Rs 3381.4, which is 22 times the cost in Chennai-the costliest in India.

Stockholm which has emerged the most expensive city in the 'dinner for two' category at Rs 10270.44 is more than double the cost of Chennai which is the costliest in India with Rs 3680.83.

In terms of room rate, at Rs 21845.99, New York is the most expensive city in the world for Indians in the 'hotel room rate' category.

It is over thrice the cost of Mumbai (Rs 6734), the most expensive city in India and 6 times the cost of Jaipur (Rs 3602.33), the least expensive city.