In today’s hyper-globalised world, worldwide interest in sports-tourism is on the rise. It is a fast-growing sector of the global travel industry, with more and more people seeking experiences which combine their passion for both sport and travelling.
Indians are very much a part of this trend: with the international football championships in Russia right around the corner in June, KAYAK data indicates a massive increase of 376% in searches made by Indians for travel to Russia during the event.
Abhijit Mishra, Director, India and Middle East of KAYAK comments, ‘The sports-tourism industry is growing at an unprecedented rate, which is projected to shoot up to $5.72 trillion by 2021*. Indians have always loved both sports and travel, so holidays around sporting events are the perfect combination to satisfy two cravings at once. Many people use these trips as an excuse for a longer holiday, combining their sporting passions with a general love of travel. On the other side, many in the tourism industry have also begun to realise the value of wooing these travellers – many of them fall into the high-spending category, stay longer than other tourist categories, are high-calibre and often stimulate other tourism’.
Indians love more than just cricket
In India, our love affair with cricket is well-documented, but it’s not the only sport motivating Indian sports fans to travel. This is evident when viewing the travel search behaviour of Indians to some of the locations of upcoming sporting events around the world. Apart from the football championships in Russia, which has seen the highest rise in searches (376%), major tennis and hockey tournaments in the UK have also spiked an increase in searches of 38% and 35% respectively, when compared with the same dates last year.
Mishra added, ‘Sports-tourism also highly benefits unconventional host countries. For most of them, hosting a major sporting event such as a world cup is a good opportunity to highlight their best offerings as a tourist destination’.
Airfare continues to be reasonable
With all the attention given to these sporting events, it may come as a bit of a surprise that flight prices for many of the cities hosting upcoming sporting events is remaining fairly steady in spite of increased demand. The highest increase in airfare is for flights from India to Russia, at 14%, while flights to the events in the UK and France are up between 2 and 10%.
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*Source: media and entertainment research firm Technavio
**Note to editors:
Data for ‘change in search volume’ and ‘change in airfares’ is found on KAYAK.co.in on search dates 2017/01/01 – 2018/04/10 for travel dates 20/5 – 17/6 (Paris, France), 5/6 – 22/7 (Russia), 14/7 – 12/8 (London, UK) and 25/6 – 22/7 (London, UK) compared to search dates 2016/01/01 – 2017/04/10 for travel dates 21/5 – 18/6 (Paris, France), 5/6 – 22/7 (Russia), 14/7 – 12/8 (London, UK) and 26/6 – 23/7 (London, UK).
