Newly affluent Indians are now said to be the world’s fastest growing market in global tourism as they explore far-flung destinations from Antarctica to the Amazon.
India became Asia‘s highest source of international travellers for the first time in 2022, with tourist numbers exceeding those of China, South Korea and Japan.
Some 27million Indians are now going abroad which is expected to more than double to almost 70million by 2030, according to Bollywood star Deepti Bhatnagar.
Bhatnagar, who has become one of India’s most popular travel experts, said tourists are being particularly drawn to sites such as Machu Picchu in Peru and Hallstatt in Austria, which is said to be the inspiration for Arendelle in the Disney film Frozen.
She added that more Indians now have the money to travel abroad and spoke of a ‘tick box’ culture among the younger generation where they are keen to get the perfect selfie or video to show off to their friends and followers on Instagram.
Tourism into India is also on the rise, particularly for religious trips – and airlines in the country last year ordered more than 1,000 new planes to meet extra demand.
The topic was examined in the new BBC Radio 4 podcast The Tourist Trap, which sees travelogue presenter Rajan Datar look at the ‘relentless rise of global tourism’.
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He attended the upmarket tourism trade show Luxury Tribe in New Delhi, saying that it was clear ‘millions more Indians now have the cash and the desire to travel the world’.
Bhatnagar, 56, who started India’s first travel show on TV more than 20 years ago, told Datar that she had seen a ‘huge change from then to now’.
She added: ‘There’s so many Indians going to Antarctica now. They want to travel to Amazon, they want to travel to Machu Pichu.
‘In 2000 when I started a travelogue it was a dream for people to travel. But today they are travelling everywhere and they want to know new places.’
Bhatnagar also spoke about the rise of the ‘luxury traveller where they do not think about any budget’.
She said there were now ‘many weddings happening all over the world’, with some travellers requesting 300 black Mercedes S-class cars for trips.
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Bhatnagar spoke about a 50th birthday party in Austria, adding: ‘They took over the entire high street, and then Schönbrunn Palace, even the railway stations, because the whole train tracks were converted into ‘happy 50th birthday’.’
In 2022, India became for the first time Asia’s highest source of international travellers, according to tourism consultancy IPK International.
International tourists that year from India – the world’s most populous country – exceeded those of China, South Korea, and Japan, the firm said.
India is now set to be the fourth-biggest global spender on travel by 2030, with travel and tourism expected to become a £322billion market – a rise of about 170 per cent from £118billion in 2019, according to Booking.com.
Speaking about what is causing the boom, Bhatnagar said: ‘More Indians have financial means to travel abroad. More and more of these Instagram, digital sites, are showing these beautiful visuals. So I think social media is playing a very strong role.
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‘They want to go to a certain place to get the selfie. They think that’s one of the most photographed spots and they have to be there.
‘There’s a tick box – they have to tick this box, I’ve been to Rio, I’ve been to this spot in Hallstatt. I think the younger generation are usually travelling like that.’
Hallstatt is a lakeside village in Upper Austria which is often praised for its incredible views.
But it has seen tourism surge in recent years thanks to its links to Frozen and becoming hugely popular among Instagrammers.
Bhatnagar said: ‘I think Hallstatt is such a pretty place and it was breathtakingly beautiful, surrounded by mountains, beautiful lake, you can go hiking, you can experience going on a boat cruise ride, and when I was there I really experienced serenity. I have given so many people advice to go to Hallstatt.’
One of the destinations becoming hugely popular with Indians is the US, with the country’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi visiting the White House to meet President Joe Biden last June in what was seen as a turning point for bilateral relations.
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And the US is trying to accommodate this new tourism boom by opening two new consulates in the Indian cities of Bengaluru and Ahmedabad.
For the first five months of 2023, travel from India to the US exceeded pre-pandemic volumes – at a time when other Asian countries were lagging, particularly China, where tourists have been slow to return to the US post-pandemic.
The surge in tourism both in and out of India saw the country’s airlines place orders for more than 1,100 planes over the last eight months of 2023.
Among these was the biggest commercial aircraft order in history by Indigo in June last year for 500 Airbus A320 planes, set to be delivered between 2030 and 2035.
This beat a deal from Air India to buy 470 planes from Airbus and Boeing that same month.
India’s domestic tourism sector is also booming with an extra 50 to 100million tourists a year expected following the opening of the new Ram Mandir temple in Ayodhya in January.
And many younger Indians are also travelling to other countries for education, with 770,000 Indian students going to study abroad in 2022 – a number which is growing by about 10 per cent each year.
Out of this total almost 140,000 went to the UK. The Office for National Statistics has said nearly a quarter of all visas were given to Indian nationals in 2022 – the highest of any nationality – with 55 per cent of these were for students.
BBC Radio 4 podcast The Tourist Trap is available on BBC Sounds