Millennials, Gen Z lead 90% of India's outbound travel in 2025: Report

The year 2025 marked a defining shift in India's outbound travel landscape, with millennials and Gen Z leading nine out of 10 international trips, a new report has revealed.

The annual travel report, released by travel-banking fintech platform Niyo, highlights how young, digital-first and experience-driven Indians are reshaping global travel trends through smarter planning, solo exploration and cost-conscious decision-making.

Gen Z and Millennials accounted for 9 in 10 international trips. Two-thirds of these journeys originated from Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai, reflecting the strong influence of India's leading metros in outbound travel, the report findings said.

Solo travel emerged as the dominant preference among Indian travellers, with 63.8 per cent of trips undertaken by individuals. Couples accounted for 19.93 per cent of trips, followed by families at 12.26 per cent and groups at 4.01 per cent, indicating a growing inclination towards independent travel.

Short-haul Asian destinations and emerging Central Asian countries remained the top choices for Indian travellers.

Leading the list was Thailand, which accounted for 23.08 per cent of trips, followed by the UAE at 21.57 per cent. Georgia attracted 9.65 per cent travellers, Malaysia 8.89 per cent, the Philippines 8.8 per cent, Kazakhstan 7.38 per cent, Vietnam 5.87 per cent, Uzbekistan 5.6 per cent, the UK 5.38 per cent and Singapore 3.78 per cent.

"Emerging countries by flight growth were Thailand, UAE, Malaysia, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, while visa bookings also grew strongly for Dubai, Vietnam, Singapore, Hong Kong and Indonesia," it added.

The report also highlighted evolving spending behaviours among travellers overseas, showing that shopping made up nearly half of total expenditure (47.28 per cent of card usage), followed by dining at 20.69 per cent, transportation at 19.93 per cent, accommodation at 9.09 per cent, and experiences at 3.01 per cent.

The findings of the report are based on travel data from over one million outbound Indian travellers.