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More Indians are travelling to Europe, North America and South East Asia to holiday amid forecasts of a torrid summer. As per BLS International, a visa service provider, visa applications are up as much as 15-20% on-year. Another company VFS Global, said it too is witnessing an upswing in outbound travel demand from India for the upcoming peak summer travel season.
The peak summer travel season in India begins from late April and lasts till the end of June. During this period, the country has historically witnessed a strong air travel demand to international destinations. Shikhar Aggarwal, joint managing director of BLS International said, “Year-on-year data shows an average volume growth of 15-20%, reflecting the steadily rising demand for international travel.
This upward trend underscores a growing global appetite for tourism, work and study opportunities abroad." As per VFS Global, international travel has rebounded in the past couple of years, rising over 4% in comparison to the pre-pandemic level. While VFS did not share data on the upcoming summer season, the company said overall visa application numbers were up 11% YoY in calendar year 2024.
"We expect the robust travel to continue. In the past two years we have observed the peak season getting extended up to the conventional lean months of September-October which is likely even this year," said Yummi Talwar, chief operational officer—South Asia, VFS Global. BLS International is seeing a surge in demand for Spain, Slovakia, Italy and France.
"The US, Europe, and North America remain the top priority for the Indians to visit. Recently, Southeast Asian nations like Vietnam and Thailand have become favourite destinations as well," said Aggarwal. As per VFS Global, popular destinations for outbound travel from India includes Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, US and the UK.
"This rise is due to leisure and business travel, renewed international education and confidence in visa services. We are encouraging applicants to plan and apply for visas well in advance," said Talwar of VFS Global. As per Ajay Prakash, president, Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI), the upcoming peak travel season will see a good demand.
"The outlook for the upcoming peak travel season is definitely positive, there might be shift in countries of preference among passengers, but the travellers are set to grow. Passengers are preferring destinations in Western Europe and Asia where Visa availability is easy," said Prakash. He added, “Outbound travel from India is expected to increase as long as we ensure that there are no capacity constraints by airlines and the ticket prices are in an affordable range.
" In order to reduce waiting period for visa applications, both BLS International and VFS Global are making efforts by incorporating artificial intelligence to assist passengers for faster visa processing..
