Indians spend nearly $1 billion monthly on foreign travel, which is knowingly more than the pre-Covid stages, discloses Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data on outward transmittals.

During the April-December period of 2022-23, the external remittances under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) for local individuals towards ‘travel’ was $9.95 billion.

The corresponding expenditure on travel in 2021-22 was $4.16 billion, and $5.4 billion in the pre-Covid year 2019-20, showed RBI data. The outward remittances to travel were $7 billion in the 2021-22 financial year.

“Indians are wandering across the world with their relatives or friends. Vietnam, Europe, Thailand, and Bali are some major endpoints that Indians desire,” said Sapan Gupta, Partner and We3Online.

Co-founder of SanKash, Akash Dahiya, said with the rise of reasonable travel and technological developments, the travel industry faces a massive boom in international destinations. Dahiya further said travellers have become habituated to the idea of “travel-now-pay-later”, which allows them to travel closer to the date and pick up a destination from their pocket.

Meanwhile, the government in the Union Budget deliberated to hike the TCS rate on overseas tour suites from the current 5% to 20% from the next fiscal. Rendering to RBI data, the spending on outward travel demolish suddenly to $3.23 billion during 2020-21, mainly due to boundaries following the outbreak of Covid-19.

The outward transmittals towards travel were $6.95 and $4.8 billion in 2019-20 and 2018-19, individually.