00:00 India's surging middle class is projected to spend as much as $144 billion a year on
00:06 international travel by 2030, and hotels, airlines and cities are spending millions
00:11 to land them.
00:13 Recently, more than 3,000 global travel professionals gathered in Delhi for the inaugural Skift
00:18 India Summit, and the opportunity to glean valuable insights from the CEOs of major travel
00:24 brands, including the Oberoi Group, Oyo, Agoda and the country's flag carrier, Air India.
00:31 With more than 1.4 billion people, India now has the world's largest population and the
00:36 fifth largest economy.
00:39 Outbound travel from India is growing much faster than from any other country, which
00:42 has led to a flurry of predictions that have travel brands salivating.
00:46 Euromonitor International projects 47 million Indian outbound travelers by 2030.
00:52 That's more than double the amount from 2019.
00:55 On the spending side, predictions are even more promising, leaping from $35 billion in
01:00 2019 to $84 billion in 2030.
01:04 If these estimates prove accurate, India will become the sixth largest outbound source market
01:08 globally by 2030.
01:11 Given all the hype, travel brands have naturally begun heavily courting Indian tourists, often
01:15 by tapping celebrities as influencers.
01:18 Bollywood icon Chakru Khan promotes Dubai, and Katrina Kaif, a British actress who makes
01:23 Hindi-language films, professes her loyalty to Accor.
01:27 Actor Ranveer Singh appears in ads for Abu Dhabi, while his wife, Deepika Padukone, is
01:32 the global brand ambassador of Qatar Airways.
01:35 Meanwhile, Neeraj Chopra, the reigning Olympic gold medalist and world champion in javelin,
01:40 has been enlisted to promote Switzerland's spectacular alpine landscapes.
01:44 Yet before India's outbound travel can reach its full potential, industry experts say the
01:49 volume of flights in and out of the country, a number mutually decided by the two respective
01:53 governments, must increase dramatically.
01:56 Right now, airlines are operating just 18 scheduled passenger flights each week from
02:00 India to the United States, up from 14 in 2019.
02:05 Some destinations have even made policy tweaks to boost capacity.
02:09 In late 2022, Canada lifted the cap on the number of flights from India from 35 per week
02:14 to unlimited and gave Indian airlines access to six hubs, including Toronto, Montreal,
02:20 Edmonton and Vancouver.
02:22 South African tourism, meanwhile, has teamed up with Ethiopian airlines to provide faster
02:27 links between India and Africa.
02:29 Even Bhutan's prime minister has emphasized the need to strengthen air connectivity between
02:33 India and the tiny Buddhist kingdom.
02:36 Last year, 1.7 million Indian tourists visited the United States, making India the country's
02:41 fourth largest travel source after Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom.
02:46 The average Indian tourist also spends money while traveling internationally, roughly $5,252
02:52 per trip, according to the last six months of data collected by the National Travel and
02:56 Tourism Office.
02:57 That's nearly double what the typical traveler from the United Kingdom spends.
03:01 If the United States wants to attract more Indian tourists in the future, experts say
03:05 it needs to make entering the country much easier.
03:08 While the U.S. is approving more visas for Indians today than in pre-pandemic years,
03:12 the average visa wait time is still about 10 months, according to the U.S. State Department
03:16 website.
03:17 For the travel industry, India appears to be an economic bright light.
03:20 The country's current 8 percent economic growth rate is stronger than China's.
03:24 Moreover, it shows no signs of slowing down.
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