New tourism fad: Soaking up sights with a passion

CHENNAI: City–based businessman Shiva Swamynath and his friends are back from a vacation in New Zealand that involved riding their Harley Davidsons along the scenic stretches of the country.
The group wanted to go on a trip that gave them scope to feed their desire for biking, and also allow them to do things like sight-seeing and other adventure activities like bungee jumping.Another tourist, Ramesh Mouli, was part of a group that went on a golfing vacation. Tourists like Swamynath and Mouli are no longer exceptions.
With more Indians looking to combine their vacations and passions, special-interest based travel is becoming the new fad on the tourism scene.
From going to Europe for historical tours and Switzerland for skiing, to wine-tasting trips to Portugal, whiskey trips to Scotland, and Oman for diving, travelers are planning experiential vacations that revolve around their hobbies, bringing back experiences larger than just checking off popular sight-seeing and tourist spots.
“Vacations are all about creating unique memories and experiences, and we are seeing people with varied interests seeking vacations that revolve around their passions or interests,” Uma Krishnan, director of Footprint Holidays, a company which focuses on special-interest travel, said. The company has sent groups of golfing enthusiasts and bikers to places like Australia and New Zealand, to Oman for diving, music enthusiasts to Hungary, and yoga fans to Bhutan.
“A powerful emerging segment of customers has evolved - from being mere hobby enthusiasts to truly being passionate on experientials and are emphasizing on vacations with special interests. Our teams have been receiving strong demand for adventure and fun experiences as a part of hobby-based thematic vacations and engaging itineraries centering on their preferred hobbies which include golfing and horse-riding”, Shibani Phadkar, senior vice-president & head - leisure travel outbound, products, contracting, operations & tour management, Thomas Cook, said.
Thomas Cook says it has seen a 28% increase in such interest-based trips.
With the surge in demand for such unique vacations, tour operators are going an extra mile to craft unique experiences for customers. Footprint Holidays, for instance, finds new places on the map and sends its people to the destinations to do a recce before finalizing tours for customers. Tour operator Cox & Kings has tied up with another company G Adventures, to organize socially and environmentally sensitive travel.
"Since these experiences are very niche in nature, they have to be highly customized keeping in mind the traveller's expectation from the entire holiday and other considerations such as budget, accommodation preference. We have designed holidays for customers, who asked for something as specific as enjoying paintings at The Louvre, coffee trails in Columbia or a holiday visiting only French vineyards," Neelu Singh, COO of Ezeego1.com, an online travel portal, said.
Tourism boards of other countries too are capitalizing on such travelers, and countries like Flanders, Oman, Seychelles, Japan and North France's Picardy have set up a base in India. Countries are now shifting their strategy to promote smaller regions within a well known country - Tourism Australia promoting Adelaide or the German Tourism board promoting Southwest Germany as the 'Sunny side of Germany', for instance.