Sales missions to India over the past year, along with anecdotal and statistics-based testimonials have affirmed the current strength and huge potential of the outbound travel market from India. Because the country has always been about as far away as any overseas market to the U.S. can be from major U.S. gateways, it didn’t configure into the route schedules of major U.S. carriers—although this is beginning to change.
So, when developing strategies for expanding their reach into the Indian market, U.S. travel suppliers would do well to know that the largest bloc of flights serving India from abroad emanated from the Middle East—primarily through Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways. This factor is illustrated in a recently released infograph from OAG, the London-based group that is the de facto world leader in airline analytics.
Also, according to data from the U.S. National Travel and Tourism Office, India is on track to once again exceeding the previous year’s total of international visitors to the United States. India has not had a year-on-year decline in traffic to the U.S. since 2009, which was the trough year of the Great Recession of 2008-09.
