Outlook robust for Indians travelling abroad

New Delhi: Increasing numbers of Indians are set to travel abroad in the coming years as their disposable income grows in tandem with more direct flights, improved visa processing for nearby countries, and a likely growth in flights by Indian airlines, travel platform MakeMyTrip said on Friday.

“All the aircraft orders that have been placed to bring new fleet into the market. Over the next 3-5 years or more, significant chunk of new orders are expected to be deployed to open up some foreign destinations or to grow (outbound) for these foreign destinations,” Rajesh Magow, co-founder and group chief executive officer of MakeMyTrip said in a post-earnings conference call.

Indian airlines such as IndiGo, Air India, Akasa have more than 1,500 aircraft on order. Akasa Air ordered 150 Boeing B737 MAX family aircraft as recently as last week.

“From a demand standpoint, I see middle to upper middle class to high net-worth individuals, the way the disposable income is growing…that is going to be other driving force for outbound destinations to grow,” Magow added.

The company expects the demand to be strongly supported with more direct connectivity between Indian and short-haul international destinations. This has also intensified the competition in travel choice between a domestic destination and a short-haul international city.

Recently, IndiGo started direct flights to Tashkent, Baku, and Vistara has commenced direct flight connectivity to Bali.

“… Key international holiday destinations like Thailand, Sri Lanka and Malaysia have announced waiver of visa for Indian travellers. This is likely to fuel greater demand for these international destinations in the times to come,” the company management added.

The company also continues to witness a growth in demand for business and premium economy air tickets.

As a result, it has introduced a booking process for business-class flight tickets where customers can preview visuals of cabin comfort, meals, in-flight entertainment, and other amenities.

Overall, the company is optimistic about a strong travel sentiment from Indian consumers and is seeing new use cases of travel emerging in India apart from leisure, pilgrimage, visiting friends and family, work.

“From consumer behaviour standpoint, the frequency of breaks that consumers were taking earlier is definitely going up. Some use cases are also emerging such as travel for celebrating a milestone such as birthday or anniversary or any occasion etc,” he said.

In addition, the company said it is also witnessing a different kind of use-case among several travellers for a destination like Ayodhya, whereby people also seek an experience on historical reasons and not just viewing it as a pilgrimage destination.