The Hindu Business Line : `Domestic travellers willing to spend more on comforts'

DOMESTIC travellers in the country have come of age. With better product and service offerings, they are willing to try new experiences and spend more on comfort and convenience.

According to Journey Watch - Autumn 2004, a survey by JourneyMart.com, over 80 per cent of the 1,123 respondents said that they prefer the comfortable `Shatabdi' like trains to travelling by road.

But improvement in the road network has resulted in more people taking to weekend getaways. Over 72 per cent of the people said that they are now getting away on weekends.

The low-fare, no-frills airline fares have also impacted the travel industry a great deal. In the survey, 93 per cent of the respondents favoured air travel to any other mode. Also, over 85 per cent of them were willing to pay extra for `in-flight' food and beverage.

Indian travellers have also become more Net savvy and are increasingly using the convenience of online booking. Over 58 per cent of the respondents have already bought a railway ticket on the Internet and for 86 per cent, it is the sheer convenience that is prompting them to buy online and that they don't mind paying more for home delivery of tickets.

Apart from this, more than 80 per cent of the respondents wanted to try something new in travel, like village tourism, because, `they are tired of urban monotony.'

The most favoured region to travel into is north India (45 per cent), followed by the South and the East. The western region is the last choice and even locals from here prefer to go out of the region.

So far, domestic travellers have been low-priority customers for the hospitality industry.

However, with over 66 per cent of the respondents showing a preference for a stay in hotel as opposed to family or a relative's home, local travellers may finally get the red carpet welcome by the industry.

JourneyMart.com is a vertical travel portal offering travel related information, choice of travel products, and enables customers to search, find and buy travel related products.

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