Falling Rupee fails to dampen Indian holidaymakers' spirits: Yatra.com survey

New Delhi, India: A survey by Yatra.com, one of India’s leading online travel portals, brought forth the high spirits of Indian travellers despite the depreciating rupee. The survey showed that more than 60 per cent of Indians are eager to travel and remain unaffected by the dip in rupee and continue to pursue their holiday plans.

This survey clearly showcased the changing paradigm of Indian travellers and how holidays and travel have become a priority amongst Indians. When asked whether they would wait for the rupee to rise and then go on holiday, 18 per cent said no, while 33 per cent said that they would like to wait till the rupee stabilises. The balance 49 per cent said that it does not matter and that they would go on a holiday anyway.

Interestingly, apart from the South East Asian countries, Europe has emerged as a destination of choice, primarily because of the Rupee remaining steady vis-à-vis the Euro. These destinations were followed in popularity by the United Kingdom and the United States, in that order. Only 24 per cent of the respondents chose to travel within India, while 27 per cent said that the location would depend on the expenses involved. The majority 49 per cent said that it doesn’t matter, showing that there is a significant segment of travellers for whom rupee fluctuations do not really matter.

Sharat Dhall, President, Yatra.com, commented, “The rupee weakening has not really had an adverse impact on Indian travellers as most of them are unfazed and continue to make holiday plans. Savvy Indian travellers book well in advance these days and hence are confident about getting good deals within their budget. The drop in oil prices has resulted in lower flight prices this year and a plethora of hotel deals has also helped in driving down the overall cost of an International break. Also, most travellers are optimistic of the rupee strengthening and are very confident that the fluctuation will not wreck their holiday plans.”

Sightseeing emerged as a favourite activity with almost 48 per cent of travellers planning to spend most of their money on it. A fascinating fact that cropped up was how around 35 per cent of the respondents are looking to compromise on air travel in terms of premium and economy seating followed by shopping when it comes to cutting cost or managing budgets for their holidays.

The survey was conducted among 10,000 individuals from Yatra.com’s customer base.

Other Key Highlights:

• Almost 41 per cent are not thinking of changing budgets because of the dip in Rupee

• 40 per cent of respondents will not compromise on accommodation and for close to 25 per cent, it did not matter

• Budget Hotels with a 37.1 per cent preference emerged as the preferred form of accommodation followed by Luxury Hotels at 32.3 per cent. The others that followed were Home Stays, Apartments, Staying with Friends and Families, and Guest Houses, in that order

• 43.9 per cent were not planning on shortening the duration their trip while for 24.6 per cent the rupee dip did not matter.

About Yatra.com

Yatra.com is India’s leading online travel company. Positioned as a brand that believes in “Creating Happy Travellers”, we provide information, pricing, availability, and booking facility for domestic and international air travel, hotel bookings, holiday packages and bus and railway reservations. We offer a host of travel services designed to make business and leisure travel easier.

Based in Gurgaon, India, Yatra.com is a one-stop-shop for all travel-related services. A leading consolidator of travel products, Yatra.com provides reservation facility for more than 35,000 hotels in India and over 400,000 hotels around the world. Through continued excellence in providing travel solutions, responses to booking travel online through Yatra.com have also reached new heights with the company doing 20,000 domestic tickets and 7500 hotels and holiday packages a day.

Customers can access Yatra.com through multiple ways: through our user-friendly website, mobile optimised WAP site and applications, 24x7 multi-lingual call centre, a countrywide network of Holiday Lounges and Yatra Travel Express stores. Yatra.com provides booking facility for all the popular as well as exotic national and international destinations. Launched in August 2006, Yatra.com is today ranked as the leading provider of consumer-direct travel services in India. Yatra.com has emerged as the most trusted travel brand in India, and has won three awards at the India Tourism Awards felicitated for ‘Outstanding performance as a Domestic Tour Operator (Rest of India)’, Outstanding performance as a Domestic Tour Operator in Jammu and Kashmir’ and ‘Outstanding performance as an Inbound Tour Operator-Cat C’.