India growing as a desirable holiday destination: Survey

Overseas travellers increasingly showing interest in India as a "desirable" holiday destination, as hotels in the country have been experiencing a large uptake in tourist interest, according to a recent TripAdvisor survey.

"It is encouraging to see significant increase in traveller interest from both emerging and established inbound markets, confirming India's appeal as a desirable holiday destination for travellers from both near and afar," TripAdvisor's Territory Manager for India Deepesh Saxena said in a release here.

The study examined TripAdvisor website data to find which markets had the largest increases in traffic, taking into account natural growth, according to year-on-year growth in share of user sessions, from major inbound travel markets, looking at Indian accommodations for full year July 2012 to July 2013 and July 2013 to July 2014.

The survey said that with traveller interest growing by 48 per cent year-on-year, Singapore leads the list when it comes to increased interest from travellers looking at Indian hotels, representing an increasingly important source of business for Indian accommodations.

Emerging markets like Ukraine and China have also been showing signs of promise as new inbound markets for India with traveller interest increasing by 43 per cent and 33 per cent, year-on-year, respectively, it said.

These markets with the biggest increase in traveller interest for India based on travellers looking at Indian accommodations are consistent with top markets researching India as a travel destination on the TripAdvisor's website.

According to TripAdvisor's survey data, travellers from India, the United Kingdom, the United States, France and Australia contributed the most number of reviews on Indian accommodations during the past year.

The survey also found that Italian and Japanese travellers are least satisfied with accommodations in India.

In 2013, Italian and Japanese travellers from these two countries gave Indian accommodations an average TripAvsior review rating of 4 and 4.02, out of a possible five, compared to the 4.10 global average review rating, it pointed out.

However, Israeli travellers are the most satisfied guests, and gave Indian accommodations an average TripAdvisor review rating of 4.23, in the past year.

Irish and American travellers are also among nationalities most pleased with Indian properties, giving them an average review rating of 4.25.

The study also showed that while Goa, Kerala and Maharashtra were the top three most searched Indian destinations in the past year, it is accommodations in Rajasthan that commend the highest average review rating of 4.3, out of a possible five.

Photograph: Kind Courtesy, Ministry of Tourism