Now boarding... Natasha Rego
After two years, international borders are open, restrictions have eased, and Indians are travelling again. So where are we going and what countries are wooing us the hardest? Take a look
natasha.rego@htlive.com
This March, India resumed regular international flights after a two-year hiatus, and Indians are raring to go. Over 3,200 flights are set to leave for foreign lands each week, where only special flights were heading out through most of 2020 and all of 2021. According to VFS Global, which processes visa applications for 50 countries, applications from India have risen by 133% in the first quarter of 2022, compared to the same time last year.
While this is good news for travellers, flight numbers are still about 60% lower than pre-Covid figures. In the winter of 2019, airlines were operating 1,200 international flights daily, according to data from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.
Still, as things open up, where is everyone going, and who’s wooing the Indian traveller the hardest? “This is an especially crucial time when countries are wooing Indians because the other big outbound travel market, China, is still largely dormant,” says Jyoti Mayal, president of the Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI).
Around the world, countries have been dropping quarantine requirements and easing Covid-19 protocols.
Travellers don’t need an RT-PCR test to enter Egypt, Turkey, Switzerland, France, Norway or Croatia, if they’ve taken countryapproved shots (with some countries requiring the booster too, however). Parts of the world (Greece, Portugal, Spain, Croatia, France, Turkey, Mexico, Ireland, Italy, the UAE, among other countries) are welcoming unvaccinated travellers too, if they test negative for Covid-19. That shouldn’t be a problem for Indians; almost the entire adult population is fully vaccinated.
This summer is set to see more Indians travel overseas than at any point since March 2020, analysts agree. “Even as the outlook remains volatile amid the ongoing pandemic and geopolitical risks, an ease in travel restrictions and pent-up demand in India — a key source market for international travel — indicate that there will be an uptick in volumes this summer,” says Pranav Sinha, South Asia head at VFS Global.
“The Far East is seeing a definitive re-emergence with maximum uplift for Thailand, followed by Singapore and Indonesia,” says Rajeev Kale, president and country head for travel company Thomas Cook. “Western Europe continues to be a favourite and destinations such as France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria and the Netherlands are heading our leaderboard for the upcoming summer season. Now that all adults can get the booster dose, that opens up more countries for Indians too. Dubai and Abu Dhabi, Turkey and Egypt are seeing high interest, and people who already hold valid visas are heading to the US.”
This is good news for a parched tourism industry with a lot to recover from. Estimated losses stand at over $4 trillion across 2020 and 2021, according to a report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) released in June 2021. Tourism’s share of global GDP dropped by almost half in a single year, from over 10% in 2019 to 5.5% in 2020, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council. It is likely to have fallen a bit more in 2021.
FLIGHT PLANS
One significant change to contend with as Indians plan their summer travel is wildly fluctuating airfares. Just as the world was opening up, the Russian war on Ukraine has caused a spike in fuel prices, causing flight costs to fluctuate dramatically around the world, particularly on long-haul journeys.
“Air fares are all currently up, including from India to the US, Canada, Europe, UK, because of the fuel hike and rising demand,” says Mayal.
A few airlines have been rolling out summer deals aimed at the Indian traveller. AirAsia and Singapore Airlines are offering discounts on flights originating in India, from now through September. Singapore Airlines is also offering discounts of up to 50% for children under 12, and similar discounts on a range of family-friendly attractions such as the Singapore zoo, night safari and SEA Aquarium.
Another steady favourite, the UAE, is making a special effort too. Every year, the UAE gets more travellers from India than from any other country. In 2019, Indians made up 2 million of Dubai’s 16-million-plus visitors. In 2020, international visitors to Dubai dropped to about 5.5 million, but by 2021 had bounced back to 7.28 million, with a little under 1 million of those from India, according to data from Dubai’s Department of Economy and Tourism.
Since tourism is a big part of UAE’s vision for a post-oil economy, smaller destinations within the Emirates are already wooing the Indian traveller. Yas Island, a 2,500-hectare manmade island in Abu Dhabi, has been advertising extensively in India, with ads featuring actor Ranveer Singh singing and dancing his way through the island’s landmark attractions, which include a Warner Bros World, a waterworld and “the world’s fastest rollercoaster”.
The Dubai Expo 2020, which ran from October 2021 to March 2022, was a big draw too. Kaushal Kharkanis, 41, a UI designer and travel blogger, spent ten days there in November 2021, on his first trip to Dubai, and he focused on the Expo. “The rest of Dubai will be there later and I have a five-year visa. The Expo was a one-time event,” he says. “Even though it’s over now, about 25% (including the Indian pavilion) is going to be retained and turned into a futuristic city. I would go back just to see that.”
NEW HORIZONS
The pandemic is also changing how we travel. Remote work and the rise of the digital nomad, compounded by the idea of revenge travel to make up for the lost two years, are seeing Indian tourists stay in one place for longer, and experience that place differently.
A destination expected to be popular this year, for this kind of experiential long-stay travel, is Turkey, which was already seeing growing interest from Indians just before the pandemic hit. This is a country that currently sits in that sweet spot between still-exotic, somewhat familiar, and culturally comfortable for Indians. In 2019, Turkey hosted about 2.4 lakh Indian tourists, up 57% from the previous year, according to data from the country’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism. In 2021, it had 50,000 visitors from India.
Among the Indian visitors this year was dancer Meghna Das, 32, from Bengaluru, who spent two weeks there in April. “As a dancer, I am used to travelling a lot, but all that came to a standstill. So this year I was looking for places to travel, to break out of a creative rut,” she says. “There was a hole in my life I was trying to fill.”
A trip to a country that had long been on her bucket list felt like the
Covid-era travel has become a lot more passenger-friendly than in the early days of the pandemic. Everything is more streamlined: immigration, customs, Covid tests.
VINEET CHHATRIA, a fashion entrepreneur who spent three weeks in Bali in April and is now workationing through Serbia and Spain REMOTE WORK AND THE RISE OF THE DIGITAL NOMAD, COMPOUNDED BY THE IDEA OF REVENGE TRAVEL, ARE SEEING INDIAN TOURISTS STAY IN ONE PLACE FOR LONGER
old life again, she says. It was also an unusual itinerary; she went for an artist residency, stayed back, immersed herself in the local culture. “Usually when I travel for residencies, I go, work and come back. I decided I don’t want to do that anymore,” Das says.
Vineet Chhatria, 31, a fashion entrepreneur from Delhi, spent three weeks at a rented villa in Bali in April, where he did things differently too. For one thing, it was a workation, something he’d never tried before. For another, it was the longest he ever stayed in one place while on holiday. He also cooked for himself, made up his own itinerary, and took in the sights by himself, on a rented motorcycle. He isn’t coming home yet either. From Bali he travelled to Serbia, where he will live and work for two weeks before heading to Spain to explore Madrid and Seville.
With an eye on the workationer, countries such as Georgia, the UAE, Barbados, Malta, Iceland, Australia and Croatia are now offering Indians longer-term “digital nomad” visas for extended periods that range from six month to two years, with Italy and Spain likely to introduce these this year too. In April, Australia also announced that it will offer backpacker visas to 1,000 Indians a year. These visas will allow them to earn as they travel.
Elsewhere, an old favourite is making a concerted effort to win back tourists from around the world. In Egypt, tourism typically accounts for nearly 9% of GDP, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council. As revenues have plummeted, the country is reaching out. A new Cairo Eye is now operational on the banks of the Nile. The Grand Egyptian Museum, the world’s largest archaeological museum, is slated to open this year. Two new pyramids, King Sneferu’s Bent Pyramid and its satellite pyramid, opened to public viewing in 2019. And there’s a restaurant on the pyramid plateau at Giza. The exchange rate is very friendly to Indians too; it is currently about Rs 4 per Egyptian pound.
So the map is coming alive again; the options are aplenty. “Covid-era travel has become a lot more passenger-friendly than in the early days of the pandemic,” Chhatria points out. “Everything is more streamlined: immigration, customs, Covid tests. Airports have more counters for these things, as do malls and other attractions.”
But we are still in a pandemic. So the one tip mentioned across the board, by travellers and agents: Don’t travel without Covid cover.