Bharat makes overnight trips for hospitals; India travels for leisure

Over a third of Indian households make overnight trips from their place of usual residence but there is a big difference in the drivers of these trips in urban India and rural Bharat. The latest report from the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) on domestic tourism show that rural India was more likely to make overnight trips for health and medical purpose while urban India was more likely to make such trips for holidaying, leisure and recreation.

The NSSO report titled Domestic Tourism in India noted that just five overnight trips per 100 rural households were for holidaying, leisure and recreation while 16.9 trips were for health and medical reason. The corresponding number per 100 urban households were 12.7 trips for holidaying, leisure and recreation and 9.5 trips for health and medical purposes.

When the data was drilled deeper for households reporting at least one overnight trip during the 365 days preceding the survey, the trend became more pronounced. On an average, just 27 overnight trips made by a rural tourist household were for holidaying, leisure and recreation compared to 90 trips made for health and medical reason. In contrast, 68 overnight trips made by urban tourist household were for holiday and leisure and 51 trips were for health and medical purposes. The survey reports that the average number of overnight trips per 100 rural tourist household was 118 and the corresponding number for urban tourist households was 121. The survey was carried out between July 2014 and June 2015.

Rural and urban households also make different choices for place of stay when they travel. So, when rural households travel for holidays and leisure, it mostly involved stay with friends and relatives - 72.4 per cent of the trips involved staying with relatives and friends and only 13.3 per cent trips involved hotel stay. Among the urban households, stay with relatives and friends happened only for 49.7 per cent of the trips. Hotels were favoured for 40.3 per cent of the trips.

When on pilgrimages and trips for religious activities, rural India preferred dharamshalas while urban folks were happy sharing homes of their relatives and friends for trips undertaken during the 365 days prior to the visit by the NSSO representative. According to the NSSO report, 44.2 per cent of the trips for religious activities by rural households involved stay at dharamshalas and only 28.2 per cent of those trips were at homes of relatives and friends. Urban households, however, planned their trips in such a manner that many could spend the night on trains, buses, waiting rooms and railway stations - about one third of the trips fell in this category. Just 16.3 per cent of the trips involved stay at dharamshalas for urban households, while 40.9 per cent of the trips involved stay with relatives and friends.

Such difference was also seen for trips for education and training. Those trips by rural households involved stay at places categorised as “others’–a term used to describe everything from hospitals, nursing homes, carriages/coaches, ships/boat, tents to railway station, waiting rooms and airport lounge. As many as 53.2 per cent of the trips involved stay at other places and just 24.5 per cent with relatives and friends. The opposite seems to be true for urban households – 66.8 per cent of the trips were with relatives and friends and only 15.5 per cent with others.

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