Indian tourists seek luxury of Maldives, Dubai as foreign travel restarts - but not everyone's excited

When the Indian government announced it was restarting international travel on March 27 after two years of limited flights amid the pandemic, Jaideep Kelkar immediately booked a week-long holiday for his family of five to the Maldives.

"Before the pandemic, we travelled at least twice annually to foreign destinations to bond as a family," said the 48-year-old Mumbai-based garment exporter. "But the two pandemic years ruined all such plans. So we were literally counting down the days until we could holiday again at a beautiful destination without Covid-19 hanging over our heads."

Thousands of upper-middle class and wealthy Indian families like the Kelkars are taking to the skies to holiday in Instagrammable locations as travel bans lift and coronavirus cases in the country plummet.

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For much of the past two years, India's outbound travellers have only been able to book flights to selected countries under bilateral travel bubble arrangements after international travel came to a grinding halt during the pandemic.

Now airlines are gearing up to relieve pent-up demand, as the government has eased rules that previously required aircrew to wear full sets of protective gears on flights and prevented security personnel at airports from carrying out pat-down searches. A recent survey by travel website Agoda found that 39 per cent of Indians were expecting to travel internationally this year.

India's aviation market was the fastest-growing in the world before Covid-19, and the government is expecting local passenger traffic to surpass pre-pandemic levels of around 415,000 travellers per day within the next 12 months.

Internationally, Dubai-based airline Emirates has said it will resume from Friday the 170 weekly flights it operated to nine Indian cities pre-pandemic, while UK-based Virgin Atlantic has announced a second daily flight connecting New Delhi to London starting June 1 in addition to its Mumbai-London service.

Several other European carriers including Air France, KLM, Finnair, Lufthansa and LOT Polish Airlines have announced new routes, more frequent flights and the resumption of old services to India, as has Malaysia Airlines. Thai Airways said in a press release it plans to operate 35 weekly flights between India and Thailand, which has eased requirements for inbound travellers this summer. United Airlines and American Airlines have announced the launch of nonstop flights to Bangalore from the US, while Air Canada has said it will operate 21 weekly return flights to Delhi from Canada.

Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Dubai have emerged as the top international destinations for Indian tourists, according to travel operators, as these were some of the first places to ease inbound travel restrictions. India's wealthiest have long been lured by the Maldives' proximity and the ease with which they can travel to its remote island resorts, which charge up to US$3,000 for a night's stay at a high-end property.

Luxury resort chain Soneva, which also has properties in Thailand, has seen revenues from its Indian guests increase "by a factor of six" at two of its Maldives locations since 2019, said Carissa Nimah, Soneva's chief commercial officer.

"India has become one of our top four source markets," she said. "We've also recently relaxed our arrivals protocols across our resorts, with no more mandatory PCR testing for guests at Soneva Fushi or Soneva Jani."

Soneva's regular guests include Bollywood stars such as Sonam Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Katrina Kaif and Varun Dhawan, who can enjoy the VIP treatment at the Maldives resorts' 11 dining options helmed by Michelin-starred guest chefs.

Located in a Unesco biosphere reserve, the resorts' nature-inspired architecture, private water villas and island villas come paired with pristine beaches and open-air bathrooms that extend into private gardens. Soneva Fushi is also set to host an international leg of the Jaipur Literature Festival in May, which is expected to draw more guests, Nimah said.

Shreenathji Holidays, a leading Indian travel firm, said in a statement that its five-day luxury packages to Dubai that include stays at five-star hotels and above were "flying off the shelves like hot cakes".

"We're in the midst of catering to a huge pent up demand among Indians for luxury travel," it said. "No sooner do we launch a package, than within minutes our website crashes. We're already recording 70 per cent higher sales than the pre-pandemic era."

Despite the excitement over luxury travel, however, many in India still have reservations about heading overseas - and about foreigners visiting the country, good as that may be for the economy. Local Circles, which styles itself as India's No 1 social media platform for discussions and problem solving, said a survey it conducted showed that only one-in-four Indians supported the government's decision to restart commercial international flights.

"The survey revealed that 69 per cent Indians were sceptical about the move due to the health risk outbound Indian tourists may pose to others upon return," a spokesman said. "A majority said that the government should only start travel from countries which have a test positivity rate of less than 5 per cent."

For Subhash Thakur, a Delhi-based entrepreneur, there is too much hype surrounding the restart of international travel.

"I think we should all calm down, these destinations aren't going anywhere," said the 53-year-old. "Why not wait some more time and avoid endangering the health of others by rushing off to these fancy destinations, only to brag about it on Instagram, and then come back and infect others? Haven't we already paid a high enough price for our lack of caution?"

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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