Indians make most use of Business Trips:
Egencia-Expedia Future of Travel Survey
55% spend more on high end meals, 41% on room service and 48% upgrade hotel rooms
New Delhi, Oct 14, 2013: Expedia.com®, the world’s largest online travel agency and Egencia,
today released the results of their joint global study on ‘Future of Travel’, an analysis of behavior
and preferences among travelers across Asia Pacific, Europe, North America and South America.
This survey was conducted online from August 20th to September 12th 2013 by Harris Interactive
among 8,535 respondents in 24 countries.
“The survey shows a clear progression of Indian travelers with respect to increasing number of
trips annually, both business and leisure. In fact, Indian travelers splurge most during business
trips when compared globally. The rise in trips has also led to an increase in travel research and
bookings on the move, with 64% leisure travelers and 51% business travelers agreeing upon
using smartphone or tablets for travel booking. To facilitate our consumers, we have been
focusing on the mobility segment with regular up-gradations in our mobile application and
mobile web page for ease of use. The idea is to make it one stop shop solution on the go,” said
Vikram Malhi, General Manager, South and Southeast Asia, Expedia.
“India is amongst the fastest growing business travel markets globally & is expected to be a US$
50 Billion market by 2017. The business travel industry in India is maturing very quickly. The
Indian business traveller expects best in class technology, as we can see in the increased
adoption of the Egencia Self Booking Technology solutions & use of Egencia mobile applications.
We see the future of the business travel in India to be led by companies like Egencia who are
bringing in best in class technology, automation & global best practices to the Indian business
traveller. This research validates our focus on the Indian business travel industry & its key
drivers. It offers valuable insights to corporate travel buyers to refine their enterprise travel
policies & purchase behavior to influence individual purchase choices” said Gaurav Sundaram,
Country Director Egencia India.
Appended are the detailed findings of the survey:
Trip Frequency
Business (3/24 – total not 100 in Leisure travel)
 Frequent travellers, more than 5 trips a year- 44% Indians, 39% Thailand
 12% Indians, 14% Thais and 18% Mexicans don’t travel for business, lowest globally
Leisure
 34% Indians travel more than 5 times a year, second highest globally after Thailand (%)
 Only 3% Indians & Norwegians do not travel for leisure at all, lowest globally
Average duration
Business
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
Maximum Indians take two day trip (34%), global highest in this segment, followed by
New Zealand (28%) and Canada (27%)
Indians, Singaporeans, Hong Kongese take the lowest amount day trips globally at 11%

Spends
 Indians high on spending when on Business Trips
o Hotel room upgrades – 48 (Globally highest)
o High-end meals – 55 (second highest globally)
o Room Service – 41 (3rd highest globally after Thailand and Hong Kong)
Trip decision determinants
Business
 Most important factors globally: Hotel location (53%), Price of hotel room (44%), Travel
time, direct flights or layovers (42%) and Airfare (36%)
 Most important criteria for Indians: Travel time, direct flights or layovers (54%), Hotel
location (51%), Travel time (38%)
 Indians are largest community to book luxurious hotels on office expense at 29%
 In Singapore, India and Hong Kong, flight times emerge as in the top three most
important (38)
Leisure
 Most important factors globally: Price of hotel room (44%), Airfare & Hotel location
(50%) and Travel time, direct flights or layovers (33%)
 Most important criteria for Indians: Hotel location and price of hotel room (54%), Airfare
(43%), Staying in a nice or luxurious hotel (34%)
 11% Indians give preference to hotels’ loyalty program (second highest after US – 15%)
We work hard and we party harder!
 Indians bad at balancing work on trips
o 44% work more and 35 % work lesser hours during business trips
o Only 22% work for the same amount of hours on trips



Only 25% Indians have not extended their business trip into leisure (second lowest after
Malaysia 23%)
44 Indian respondents said that they have turned their business trip into a vacation but
travelled alone for the business part
42 Indian respondents said they have had a family member or friend join them
Loyalty programs & reward points
 Employees under 40 have stronger feelings of entitlement (very entitled/entitled)
toward their travel reward points than older employees (70% vs. 64%). Indians one of
the top 3 to give importance to loyalty programs while booking flight/hotels
o 92% Indians find loyalty programs important while booking hotel
o 89% Indians find loyalty programs important while booking flight – 3rd highest
globally
 Among those who have some of the strongest feelings of entitlement toward their
travel reward points are Brazilians (96%), Mexicans (91%) and Indians (90%)
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
Employees under 40 have stronger feelings of entitlement (very entitled/entitled)
toward their travel reward points than older employees (70% vs. 64%)
Compensation: Indians on top!
 More than six in ten Indian employees (65%) are compensated with money for their
business trips, a high across all countries and almost double of the global average
 Japan on top in compensating with hours/days at 53%
 New Zealanders (48%) at a high for not getting compensated at all!
We trust the net
 A majority of Indians save some type of personal information to streamline the travel
booking process
o Mobile number - 74%, second highest after Korea and Malaysia at 75%
o Email - 71% (Highest globally)
o Home Address - 52% (Highest globally)
o Work Address - 48% (Highest globally)
o Credit Card - 41% (Highest globally)
 Only 8% Indians don’t save any personal data online for travel booking, lowest globally
 Those most likely to be influenced by travel related website incentives are employees in
India (91%), South Korea (92%), Thailand (92%) and Malaysia (89%)
 The most frequently cited incentive that would influence employees to save more of
their personal data on a travel website is discounts on flights/hotels (42%)
Indians going the mobile way
 57% Indians use a Smartphone or Tablet for personal or business reasons, higher than
the global average of 45%
 64% of respondents have used computers to book their business as well as leisure trip
 86% business travellers who use their Smartphone and/or Tablet, use their mobile
devices for travel purposes (bookings or monitoring itineraries)
o Planning – 66%
o Booking a trip – 58%
o Sharing trip while travelling – 46%
We refer and we prefer
 Travel reviews gaining reliability for Indian travelers, ahead of the global crowd
o Leisure Travellers: 56% say it is very important while 34% find it somewhat
important
o Business Travellers: 56% say it is very important while 35% find it somewhat
important
 Indians are the worst cribbers!
o Only three in ten (29%) Indians have not posted a negative travel-related
comment
o 40% crib about hotels; 36% about restaurants
 While a majority in most countries do not post positive reviews, the notable exception
to this is in India where just under two in ten (17%) have not posted a positive review
 62% Indians have posted positive reviews about hotels, 50% Restaurants and 38% flights
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
47% Indians have posted a service complaint and expect a response, followed by Thais
at 33%
Full details on the Future of Travel Study can be found on the Expedia Viewfinder Blog here:
viewfinder.expedia.com.
About Expedia.com
Expedia.com is the world’s leading online travel site, helping millions of travelers per month
easily plan and book travel. Expedia.com (http://www.expedia.com/, 1-800-EXPEDIA) aims to
provide the latest technology and the widest selection of vacation packages, flights, hotels,
rental cars, cruises and in-destination activities, attractions, and services. With the Expedia Best
Price Guarantee, Expedia.com customers can get the best rates available online for all types of
travel.
Expedia, Expedia.com and the Airplane logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of
Expedia, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other logos or product and company names
mentioned herein may be the property of their respective owners. © 2013 Expedia, Inc. All
rights reserved. CST # 2029030-50
About Egencia, an Expedia, Inc. company
Egencia is a leading full-service travel management company delivering innovative corporate
travel solutions and expert local service to more than 10,000 clients in nearly 60 countries
around the world. As part of Expedia, Inc., the world's largest travel company, Egencia provides
forward-looking companies with the ability to drive compliance and cost savings in their travel
programs, while meeting the needs and requirements of the modern business traveler. For
more information, please visit www.egencia.co.in or follow us on Twitter @Egencia_India.
Egencia and the Egencia logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Expedia, Inc. in
the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective
owners. © 2013 Egencia, LLC. All rights reserved. CST # 2029030-50; CST # 2083922-50.
Survey Methodology
This Expedia survey was conducted online from August 20 to September 12 across Europe,
North America, Brazil and Asia Pacific by Harris Interactive among 8,535 respondents over the
age of 18. In order to qualify to take the full survey, respondents had to be employed full time,
part time or self-employed. Respondents who did not meet these qualifications were directed to
the demos. The survey Interviews were conducted in English, British English, Portuguese,
French, French Canadian, Malay, Dutch, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mexico LATAM SP,
Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Hong Kong, Austria-German and Danish.
Weighting
Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income were weighted
where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population.
Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online.
Each country was weighted using propensity scores and/or demographic data to reflect the
country’s employed adult population as a whole. Exceptions to this are Brazil, India and Mexico,
which were weighted to reflect the online employed populations of each country. In India, only
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three regions were surveyed: Delhi (n=95), Mumbai (n=100), and Hyderabad/Chennai/Bangalore
(n=106). These three regions were then weighted together to reflect their population size. For
the global 24-country total, an additional post-weight was applied to adjust for the relative size
of each country’s adult population.
All sample surveys and polls, whether or not they use probability sampling, are subject to
multiple sources of error which are most often not possible to quantify or estimate, including
sampling error, coverage error, error associated with nonresponse, error associated with
question wording and response options, and post-survey weighting and adjustments. Therefore,
Harris Interactive avoids the words “margin of error” as they are misleading. All that can be
calculated are different possible sampling errors with different probabilities for pure,
unweighted, random samples with 100% response rates. These are only theoretical because no
published polls come close to this ideal. Because the sample is based on those who agreed to
participate in the Harris Interactive panel, no estimates of theoretical sampling error can be
calculated.
For more information, please contact:
Text 100
Beedisha Chakrabarti/ Swati Guwalani/ Ankita Juneja
+91 9899003192/ +91 9873220117/ +91 9999194721
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