OPINION I MINT

India’s domestic tourism story is usually told through tourist arrivals, hotel rooms and popular holiday destinations. Household survey data reveals a much larger and more interesting market. The latest Domestic Tourism Expenditure Survey (DTES), conducted by the National Statistics Office from July 2025 to June 2026, offers a picture of domestic tourists: why they travel, how they travel, where they stay and what they spend. Read alongside earlier household tourism surveys, it points to an important conclusion: India does not have one domestic tourism market. It has several purpose-driven travel economies.

Consider why Indians travel. Among overnight trips covered by the 365-day reference period in 2025–26, 47.7% were for pilgrimage and religious purposes, 29.6% for health and medical needs and 22.1% for holidaying, leisure and recreation. Over the preceding 30 days, about 89% of overnight trips were social, principally visits to friends and relatives and travel connected with marriages and other social occasions. The two groups have different reference periods and should not be combined, but the message is unmistakable: India’s domestic traveller is not synonymous with the holidaymaker.

This has deep roots. India’s first dedicated national household tourism survey, undertaken by NCAER in 2002–03 and led by the author, found that social purposes accounted for 58.9% of tourists, religious travel 13.8%, business 7.7% and leisure just 6%. Definitions and reference periods have changed since then, so these figures do not constitute a continuous statistical series. Yet, viewed across nearly a quarter century, they reveal an enduring characteristic of Indian travel: family, faith, livelihood and necessity have long been powerful drivers of domestic tourism alongside leisure.

For its economic significance, follow the money. In 2025–26, an average health and medical trip cost ₹32,167, followed by shopping at ₹18,981, leisure at ₹11,723, pilgrimage at ₹7,694, business at ₹5,949, education and training at ₹3,953 and social travel at ₹2,543. The wide variation is revealing: a domestic trip is not a homogeneous economic unit. Its value depends greatly on why the journey is undertaken. Spending has also risen substantially over the past decade. In current prices, average expenditure on a leisure trip increased from ₹6,358 in 2014–15 to ₹11,723 in 2025–26, about 84%. Health-related travel rose from ₹15,336 to ₹32,167, an increase of around 110%, while social travel increased from ₹1,068 to ₹2,543, or 138%. Education and training rose by about 73%, shopping by 37% and business travel by 34%. These are nominal increases and  include price changes, but they also show how substantially the rupee value associated with domestic journeys has expanded.

Where the money goes is no less interesting. On a leisure trip, transport accounted for about 31% of expenditure, followed by shopping at 19%, food and drink at 16% and accommodation at 15%. Pilgrimage also generated a broad spread of demand: transport took up 33%, food 18%, shopping 17% and accommodation 13%. Health travel was completely different, with medical expenses absorbing about 73% of total expenditure. Shopping trips were similarly concentrated, with purchases making up about 71%. Social travel produced yet another pattern: shopping accounted for about 49%, transport 29% and food 15%.

This is the key economic distinction. The purpose of a journey determines not only how much is spent, but which sectors capture it. Leisure distributes the tourism rupee across transport, retail, food and accommodation; pilgrimage supports a broad destination economy; health travel connects mobility and accommodation to healthcare; while the enormous social-travel segment generates substantial demand for retail and transport.

A rural-urban comparison adds another dimension. For purposes measured over the 365-day reference period, average expenditure per overnight trip was ₹15,561 among rural households and ₹16,420 among urban, a surprisingly small gap. But purpose reveals what the average conceals. Urban leisure trips cost ₹13,190 compared with ₹8,890 for rural households; pilgrimage ₹9,920 against ₹6,269; and health trips ₹41,649 compared with ₹29,454. Rural India has a large travel economy in its own right.

The latest survey also points to a more self-directed traveller. For the 365-day group, 17% of trips involved tourism services booked directly via the internet; this was 27.8% in urban India compared with 9.8% in rural India. Direct booking without the net was much larger, at 44.6%. The implication for hotels, homestays, transport providers, restaurants and other local businesses is clear: being easily discoverable and directly accessible to travellers matters increasingly.

Nearly a quarter-century of household tourism measurement enriches our view of India’s domestic market. A pilgrim, a patient travelling for treatment, a family attending a social occasion and a household taking a holiday are all domestic travellers, but they generate very different combinations of demand and expenditure.

India’s domestic tourism opportunity should therefore not be understood simply as millions of tourists searching for destinations. It is better seen as millions of journeys undertaken for different purposes, each creating its own economic ecosystem.

In short, the opportunity lies not only in more travel, but in recognizing and serving the many markets within it.