More Indians are travelling solo than ever before

• India witnessed an enormous increase of nearly 133% in bookings made by solo travellers last year
  
• Travel site Klook, has recorded an upsurge in bookings from 22% in 2017 to 26% in 2018 with Dubai, Thailand and Singapore as major attractions.
  
• According to Google trends, half of domestic travellers are women.

From rejuvenation activities to discovering oneself, India has seen a significant increase in solo travellers — including female travel enthusiasts.

According to data from hospitality chain Oyo, India witnessed an enormous increase of nearly 133% in bookings made by solo travellers in December 2018, as compared to same time in 2017. These booking majorly consisted cold destinations.

While another travel website, Klook, has recorded an upsurge in bookings from 22% in 2017 to 26% in 2018 with Dubai, Thailand, and Singapore as major attractions.

Both companies, on being asked about the upsurge, said that solo travelling is gaining attention of millennials for the sake of ‘alone time’ and the trend has been increasing year on year.

As more people are going with the concept of solo travelling, Burhanuddin Pithawala, VP Growth and Conversions, OYO, told Business Insider that “We believe that this could be a result of various factors like need to spend quality ‘me time’, flexibility at work where individuals are allowed to work remotely as well as the ease of booking hotels across geographies at the push of a button.”

More women are travelling

If we go by the google trends for 2017, over 10 million women searched websites for solo travel. In India, over half of domestic solo travellers are women, according to ministry of statistics and programmes — which clearly indicates that women are leading the way in solo travelling.

In fact, according to a survey by booking.com, a travel fare aggregator, over half of India’s population said that they are willing to go solo this year — that accounts to 18% more than global travellers.

“The trend will continue to grow across demographics and will not be limited to a particular gender or age group.” said Ritu Mehrotra, Country Manager at Booking.com.

Globally, the travel industry’s tours and activities market is going to touch $183 billion by 2020, said a survey by Klook. In 2018, Solo travel witnessed an year-over-year increase from 31% to 38% , it highlighted in a report shared with Business Insider.

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