Thomas Cook (India) (TCIL), India’s leading integrated travel and travel related financial services company, undertook the ‘Through the Crystal Ball’ Survey to help identify emerging trends, opportunities and needs of the emerging Indian traveller via the logical route of digital – via email, web and social media to reach out to this “digital natives” generation.
The survey results were presented at Thomas Cook India’s recent event ‘Disha 2013’, organised by its educational arm Thomas Cook – Centre of Learning (CoL) to present to the young students, the realities that they, as next generation travel professionals passing out from CoL, would have to deal with.
Over 3800 respondents were reached via the ‘Through the Crystal Ball’ online survey administered via Thomas Cook’s Social Media platforms – primarily Facebook & Twitter, and Thomas Cook’s email database of young independent customers. Respondents, from both metros and non-metros who participated were encouraged to share and refer and received gratification via online travel coupons.
Madhavan Menon, Managing Director, TCIL said, “We, at Thomas Cook India, have a long history of innovation spanning over 170 years – as creators of the first package holiday, the first hotel voucher, travelers cheques etc. and so we believe innovation is in our DNA! Research – especially forward looking research such as this, serves like lighthouses – illuminating the path ahead as we continue on our continuous journey of offering new and innovative products, services and destinations to satisfy the ever evolving needs and aspirations of a young, impatient and digitally native Indian traveller.”
The main highlights of the survey indicated that 72 per cent of young Indians will travel on a holiday irrespective of the economy/currency; Young Indian travelers want an option to connect with their travel service providers, online as well as offline with 66 per cent travelers preferring a flexible mix of online & offline touch-points; 43 per cent of the young travelers make at least one international trip annually; 66 per cent of the young Indian travelers said that they would take two short haul trips in a year instead of one long haul trip annually; 62 per cent of the young travelers are open to spend up to 15 per cent of their annual income on travel.
