Why India travels

Policy needs to look beyond hotels and airports

The latest Domestic Tourism Expenditure Survey, done by the National Statistics Office, suggests that the larger economic story is domestic. India’s tourism sector has traditionally placed considerable emphasis on foreign visitors, foreign-exchange earnings, and high-value leisure travel. Government estimates put tourism’s contribution at 5.22 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2023-24, supporting, directly and indirectly, 84.6 million jobs, which account for about 13.3 per cent of employment in the economy. The World Travel and Tourism Council estimates that spending by domestic visitors reached $203 billion, or roughly ₹17.7 trillion, in 2025, accounting for 86 per cent of India’s travel and tourism spending and growing more than 10 per cent year-on-year. The survey data, conducted between July 2025 and June 2026, provides a useful picture of what this domestic market looks like and shows why it needs greater policy attention. While 36.1 per cent of households reported an overnight trip, 58.2 per cent undertook a same-day trip. More importantly, much of this travel has little to do with “holidays” in the usual sense of the term. Nearly 48 per cent of overnight trips were for pilgrimage or other religious purposes, while health and medical travel accounted for 29.6 per cent nationally — 38.4 per cent in rural India, compared to 16.5  per cent in urban India.

 

The numbers for medical travel are particularly critical. Such trips are the costliest, averaging ₹29,454 per rural trip and ₹41,649 in urban areas. Rural families spent about 75 per cent of this on medicines and other treatment-related items, while government reimbursements covered only 8.2 per cent. Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar together accounted for more than 30 per cent of health and medical overnight trips. This shows a wider problem of uneven health care capacity. For a household travelling because specialised health care is locally unavailable, this is not discretionary tourism spending. It is a cost arising from the poor availability of health care facilities. Reducing medical travel, therefore, requires investment in district hospitals, diagnostics, and specialist availability, especially in rural India. This can reduce both the need to travel and the financial burden.

 

The survey data also suggests that domestic tourism  relies fundamentally on road and rail networks. Buses accounted for 32 per cent of rural overnight visitor-trips, while trains accounted for 35.1 per cent of urban ones. Hired transport represented another 30.4 per cent of rural trips. Accommodation is usually outside the conventional hotel market. Only 16.7 per cent of rural overnight trips used hotels or guest houses; 13.5 per cent stayed with friends and relatives and 27.7 per cent used other non-commercial accommodation. This is, therefore, not simply a tourism story but one about health care access, public transport, and regional development. With buses dominating rural travel and trains urban, policy should prioritise affordable connectivity, sanitation, accommodation and health care networks over a narrow hotel-and-airport model. Equally important is affordable stay at pilgrimage centres and other high-footfall destinations. Strengthening district health care can reduce costly medical journeys. India should continue to pursue international and high-value tourism, which may have a much bigger multiplier effect, but domestic demand merits a different approach.