JourneyMart.com, a comprehensive online travel information platform, today released statistics on the travel habits and research preferences of travellers. These insights have been gathered via their proprietary ‘Destination Explorer’ property, a tool which utilizes avant-garde technology, exclusive content and individual preferences to recommend the most suited holiday experiences to a user. In doing so, this tool captures quantitative data on search preferences of every unique user, thus presenting insights into consumer demands and behavior.

This year, Adventure has been the most popular reason for both domestic and international leisure travel with one in every four users searching for such an experience. While destinations such as Auckland and Bali were among the favorites for international holidays in this segment, interestingly some of the most commonly researched domestic adventure destinations were Lansdowne, Auli, Aizawl and Naukuchiatal. There are various adventure options offered at these destinations including Trekking, Kayaking, Skiing and other mountain activities. Interestingly, the trends in domestic adventure travel appear to reflect a greater level of experimentation and maturity of today’s traveller, as they seek a diversity of adventure activities across various regions of the country.

A family holiday was the second most important reason for leisure travel with 17.5% users searching for the ideal family destination. While a large number of domestic travellers favored the hills, those seeking international family holidays preferred destinations offering spa and wellness opportunities followed closely by luxury experiences. Destinations such as Bhimtal and Lavasa interestingly ranked amongst the top few domestic family holiday spots while internationally the favourites were Bangkok, Hong Kong, Langkawi and Barcelona.

For those seeking international holiday options, Beach holidays emerged as the third most preferred reason to travel, with 18.3% of users selecting such an experience. Some of the most popular international beach destinations are Bali, Phuket, Cape Town and Bora Bora.  On the other hand for those looking at domestic travel options, only 9.7% opted for beach vacations, whilst 10.3% chose ‘Honeymoon’ making it the third most common reason for leisure travel within the country. Kodaikanal, Kasauli, Shimla and Srinagar emerged as the hottest honeymoon destinations in India while Goa, Kovalam and Alibag appear to be the favourite beach spots in the country.

Some of the other primary reasons for travel included Hills, Backwaters, Heritage, Wildlife, Pilgrimage, Luxury, Culture, Spa & Wellness and Chilling. Apart from the above mentioned categories, this year has witnessed an increased interest in ‘Music and Culture’ related travel while the ever popular ‘City Getaways’ has retained its importance as a primary source for weekend getaway ideas from the metro cities across India.

Speaking about the Destination Explorer technology, Mr. Varun Chadha, COO, JourneyMart.com, said, “With this search, we have innovatively responded to a travellers need for a comprehensive and credible source of information in the research and travel planning stages.” Substantiating this trend is a recent report published by PhoCusWright, which highlights that a considerable portion of travellers, especially in emerging markets, may not necessarily have a destination in mind when they begin their travel planning process and thus require appropriate destination selection tools. He further added, “With fundamental travel criteria’s integrated within the search such as one’s ‘Reason to Travel’, ‘Season to Travel’, preferred travel time and duration, we ensure that users have all they need to find their ideal holiday destination.”

This Intuitive Holiday search displays relevant and comprehensive results on the basis of various established properties and proprietary information of JourneyMart.com, including its information bank of over 1000 domestic and global destination guides as well as concepts such as ‘City Getaways’, covering over 200 getaways from major Indian cities and ‘Holiday Ideas’, offering a choice of destinations across 17 unique types of holidays.

Seamlessly integrating information and technology via a property such as ‘Destination Explorer’,JourneyMart.com ensures that the user has all that is required to discover plan and book their next holiday.

Sample size – 1,00,000 unique users

Profile of visitors – Urban, contemporary travellers with an average age group of 25 to 45 years.