Indians more likely to choose Goa over Maldives or Switzerland for their next vacation

Data collected by YouGov DestinationIndex, that tracks public perception of the world's most popular hotspots on a daily basis, has revealed that Goa is the number one choice of urban Indians for their next vacation. Goa opened up for tourism in July, and gradually started reopening restaurants with certain guidelines. According to the new Unlock 4.0 guidelines, COVID-negative certificate, or home isolation for those travelling to Goa will no longer be required. With steady efforts taken by the state authorities to welcome tourists again, it is not surprising to see people choose Goa as their top holiday spot amidst Covid19.

The pandemic seems to be rebooting domestic tourism. DestinationIndex data shows despite travel bouncing back globally, Indians choose to stay close to home, and four out of the top five places to travel by Indians are local destinations.

Although the number of Coronavirus cases in the state are constantly on the rise, travel enthusiasts are keen to holiday in Delhi, ranking it second in the list of top ten destinations.

God’s own Country Kerala is placed in third, followed by Maharashtra in the fourth position. Preference to travel to both these locations has seen an increase over the last ten days.

Maldives is the only international destination ranked in the top five places- at fifth. In fact, preference for Maldives has seen the greatest rise, from 2.6% to 6.8%, in the last ten days. After four months of lockdown, Maldives finally opened to international tourists in July and has relaxed many travel norms. In addition to this, incentives such as free visa on arrival and no compulsory quarantine could be another reason for the increase in interest to travel to this location.

After Maldives, Switzerland and Dubai are the other foreign destinations in the list of top 10 places, ranked in seventh and tenth, respectively.

Finally, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan complete the list of top ten destinations, in sixth, eighth and ninth, respectively.

Methodology

The Indian public’s perceptions of 40 destinations are tracked daily by YouGov DestinationIndex, with Intent (“Most likely to next visit”) one of 16 metrics monitored.

The tool also operates internationally in 25 markets altogether, tracking a total of 120 destinations. It provides marketers in the tourism industry with a traveler’s-eye view of the world’s most popular tourist spots, as well as measuring the factors which contribute to their success.

The tool will allow marketers to see rankings of destinations against each metric, as well as track the fortunes of places, on a daily basis (see samples below).

YouGov DestinationIndex can be used to:

• Rank a destination’s status of prestige, quality and value
• Learn how perceptions are affected by global and local events
• Explore target audience preferences
• Support strategy development to ensure messaging hits the spot
• Evaluate and adjust specific marketing campaigns
• Track long-term visitor trends
• Profile travelers by destination
• Measure the economic impact and forecast future expenditures for destinations and more…

Data can be filtered to see the views of thousands of different audience segments – with profiles including domestic or international travelers, those with an airline, hotel or airport preference or those most likely to travel this year - all viewed as a snapshot or tracked over time.

Metrics cover the full purchase funnel for tourism and range from awareness of a destination, through perceptions of quality, value, impression and more, right through to intent to visit.

Notes to editors:

Travel Intent metric (“When you are next in the market to plan a holiday, which destination are you most likely to visit”).

Sample – YouGov DestinationIndex tracks in-market public opinion every day. The data referred to here covers a 10-day period, with with a minimum sample size of 250.

Markets covered by YouGov DestinationIndex - United States, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, United Kingdom, AUE, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Egypt, India, Japan, Mexico, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Sweden, Brazil, Norway, Philippines, Italy, Germany, Spain and Switzerland

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