Nina Varghese

Chennai , Nov. 18

THE buoyancy in the economy has been reflected in the growth in the leisure travel and vacation segment.

Mr B.S. Rathor, Chairman and Principal Advisor, All India Resort Development Association (AIRDA), said that the domestic holiday market has boomed in the recent years. According to the Tourism Ministry, there are about 500 million domestic tourists annually.

Mr Rathor said that timeshare is the fastest growing component of tourism and provides a number of options for leisure trips and family holidays. The timeshare industry in India, which had seen tough times and has now entered a growth phase, registered a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 20 per cent over the last three years.

He said at present there is a membership of about 2,00,000 with over 60 timeshare resorts and 8-lakh people using timeshare every week. The average cost of a timeshare week in India ranges from about Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 5 lakh.

Recently, the hospitality industry got a fillip with the government notification allowing mixed use of timeshare and hotel as per global industry standards, Mr Rathor said. The mixed use will allow timeshare resorts and hotels to co-exist and optimise the facilities.

The timeshare industry is not an urban focused one, but is largely centred on resort locations. This step by the Government will encourage the hotel companies to set up new projects in tourist destinations. This would provide employment, he said.

He said that in the US, where the timeshare concept originally evolved, the CAGR is about 4 per cent while in Asia the growth is about 13 per cent. India and China are the key markets in this region, he said. The other markets are Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia. The growth in India is higher than the Asian average, he said.

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