Trend reports are usually written for airlines and big chains. This one is for the owner of a 20-room hotel who wants to know what’s actually changing and what to do about it. Each trend below has a source and a “for your hotel” line, and the table at the end sums it all up.
A note on dates: official tourism data comes out once a year. The latest, published in September 2026, covers 2025. Where we use surveys, we name them and give their dates.
Is domestic travel still growing?
Yes, faster than ever. India recorded 428.55 crore domestic tourist visits in 2025, up 45.5% on 2024 and the highest in the Ministry of Tourism’s series.[1] The total includes the Kumbh Mela in Uttar Pradesh. Leaving Uttar Pradesh out, visits still grew about 18.7% in 2025, by our calculation from the official table.[1]
Growth was uneven. Among large states in 2025, West Bengal (+59.5%), Andhra Pradesh (+23.2%), Gujarat (+19.8%) and Tamil Nadu (+18.3%) grew quickly, while Karnataka (+5.2%) and Madhya Pradesh (+4.8%) grew slowly.[1] Our domestic tourism statistics guide has the full table.
For your hotel: a growing market doesn’t fill rooms by itself. It raises competition for the same travellers, so being easy to find and book matters more.
How big is pilgrimage and religious travel?
It’s the single largest reason for overnight trips. Pilgrimage and religious travel accounted for 48% of overnight trips in the past year, according to the Ministry of Statistics’ Domestic Tourism Expenditure Survey for July 2025 to June 2026, as reported by The Tribune.[2] The Kumbh Mela’s effect on Uttar Pradesh’s 2025 numbers shows how much one religious event can move demand.[1]
For your hotel: if you’re near a temple town, a pilgrimage route or a festival venue, plan rates, minimum stays and staffing around the religious calendar months ahead, and make sure families and groups can book easily.
Are short breaks and long weekends driving demand?
Yes. In Thomas Cook and SOTC’s India Holiday Report 2025, 47% of respondents said they intend to use long weekends and public holidays for short getaways, and 85% planned to take more holidays in the year.[3] The survey covered over 2,500 people, a mix of the companies’ customers and non-customers.
For your hotel: price long weekends separately, publish them early, and have a plan for filling the weekdays in between. See why weekend getaways matter for small hotels.
Are faster roads and trains changing where people go?
They’re shrinking travel times, which brings more places within a short break’s reach. By December 2025, 164 Vande Bharat services were operating across the country.[4] On the roads, the Delhi to Dausa to Lalsot section of the Delhi Mumbai Expressway, opened in February 2023, was expected to cut the Delhi to Jaipur journey from 5 hours to about 3.5 hours.[5]
For your hotel: state your journey time from the nearest big cities, by road and rail, on your website and listings. A line such as “about 3 hours by road from the nearest metro” (with your real figure) is the kind of specific fact a traveller, or an AI tool, can use.
How are AI tools and social media changing trip planning?
They decide which places and hotels travellers hear about first. In Agoda’s 2026 Travel Outlook, 33% of Indian travellers said they already use AI for travel planning, and 68% said they’re likely to for their next trip.[6] In the Thomas Cook and SOTC survey, 60% said social media, OTT platforms and movies increasingly shape their travel decisions.[3]
For your hotel: make your details specific and consistent across your website, Google listing and OTAs, and post real photos and short videos of what makes your place different. See how AI is changing the way Indians plan trips.
How are guests paying?
UPI is now an everyday payment method, and its costs for businesses are changing. UPI processed 24.07 billion transactions worth ₹29.37 lakh crore in September 2026, up 22.5% in volume on a year earlier, according to NPCI data reported by Business Standard.[7] The same report says that from 15 October 2026, UPI payments to merchants above ₹2,000 will carry a 0.40% fee, capped at ₹300, while person-to-person payments and small vendors receiving up to ₹1 lakh a month stay free.[7]
For your hotel: keep UPI front and centre for guests, and ask your bank or payment gateway what you’ll pay on UPI and card payments from mid-October 2026, so your prices and deposits account for it.
Are foreign tourists coming back?
Not in 2025. Foreign tourist arrivals fell 8.0% in 2025 to 91.5 lakh, mainly because arrivals from Bangladesh dropped by 73.2%.[1] The top source markets were the USA, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Germany, Japan and Nepal.[1] December was the busiest month, with 11.79% of the year’s arrivals, followed by January, November and February.[1]
For your hotel: foreign guests remain a winter story. If they matter to you, make sure you’re on the platforms they use, can take international payments, and file Form C correctly.
What’s the summary?
| Trend | Evidence | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Record domestic travel | 428.55 crore visits in 2025, +45.5% (MoT)[1] | Compete on findability and easy booking, not just price |
| Pilgrimage-led trips | 48% of overnight trips (MoSPI survey, via The Tribune)[2] | Plan around religious calendars months ahead |
| Short breaks | 47% plan long-weekend getaways (Thomas Cook and SOTC, 2025)[3] | Price long weekends separately; fill weekdays |
| Faster journeys | 164 Vande Bharat services by Dec 2025 (PIB)[4] | Publish journey times from nearby cities |
| AI and social planning | 33% use AI to plan (Agoda, 2026)[6]; 60% influenced by social media (Thomas Cook and SOTC)[3] | Specific, consistent details everywhere; real photos and video |
| UPI everywhere | 24.07 billion transactions in Sep 2026; merchant fee from 15 Oct 2026 (Business Standard)[7] | Check your payment costs |
| Softer foreign arrivals | 91.5 lakh in 2025, -8.0% (MoT)[1] | Treat foreign demand as a winter segment |
What this means for hotel owners
Most of these trends point the same way: guests decide faster, find you through more channels, and expect booking to be easy. Three changes cover most of them:
- Reply fast. Short-break and late-deciding guests book with whoever answers first, often on WhatsApp.
- Be specific online. Journey times, room types, views, what’s included and who you suit, said the same way everywhere.
- Price by demand. Long weekends, festivals and your local events deserve their own rates and rules.
Then do the sums: our OTA commission calculator shows what moving some bookings from OTAs to your own website is worth in a year. When you plan for long weekends and festivals, our Performance Marketing service can time Google and Meta campaigns around them.