86% Indian travellers to take more health and safety-related precautions while travelling in future: Booking.com

NEW DELHI: About 86% Indian travellers are planning to take more health and safety related precautions when traveling in the future and 71% Indians are opting to avoid certain destinations altogether due to safety concerns as per a Booking.com report. When compared with the global travel trend for avoiding destinations due to safety concerns, India ranked second globally, after Thailand, Booking.com said on Tuesday.
With a shift in destination preferences, transportation preferences have also changed. 68% of Indians are likely to give public transportation a miss to avoid travelling with a large number of people due to the fear of contracting Covid-19. This is higher than the global average of 46%. Instead, travellers will choose to rent or drive their own car to and around their destination – making 2021 the year of the road trip.

As per the report, the ‘new normal’ will also see travellers prioritize and adhere to increased health and safety measures, as 78% Indians are happy to travel to destinations where health spot checks on arrival are standard and 81% Indians don’t mind travelling to a destination where it's mandatory to wear a face mask in public. 75% Indians are expecting travel providers to clearly outline the safety precautions they’re taking and 48% agree that a clear display of cleaning and hygiene policies is now a must have according to the report.

Keeping safety while travelling a priority, 77% of Indian travellers will only book a particular accommodation if it’s clear what health and hygiene policies it has in place, with 79% favoring accommodations that have antibacterial and sanitizing products. Quarantine measures will remain less popular with only 51% of Indian travellers willing to accept these in order to travel to a particular destination.

Ritu Mehrotra, country manager, India, Sri Lanka and Maldives at Booking.com said, “Health and safety are top priority for travellers wanting to travel once again. Travellers are looking forward to new health and safety measures to avoid Covid-19. In response to a rise in demand from travellers, Booking.com now enables properties to be able to easily display safety measures such as hygiene, sanitisation, social distancing on their property listings, so travellers can have peace of mind when booking their next trip. ”

The research was commissioned by Booking.com and conducted among a sample of adults who have travelled for business or leisure in the past 12 months, and must be planning to travel in the next 12 months (if/once travel restrictions are lifted). In total 20,934 respondents across 28 countries and territories were polled including 997 respondents from India.