Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Crouching tiger gets ready for attack

India may be dubbed as a crouching tiger but it’s probably just getting ready for attack. After all, slow and steady is what we’ve been always been taught to follow.

So what if China has overtaken Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy? India isn’t too far behind and is making headway in other, more interesting albiet small, areas. Take travel for instance. While Asia as a continent has been identified to assume a leadership role where travel is concerned, according to Euromonitor Travel and Tourism Forecast Update, India it says is expected to do well in terms of attracting international tourists and business travellers.

The report states that India is set to attract more corporate travellers and inbound tourists. India corporate travel is expected to outpace Asia Pacific in 2011, with business departures from India accounting for 33% of all travel versus 23% for Asia Pacific. Considering the total outbound travel in 2011 in Asia, India will see off about 7.4% of the total travellers.

Indian Flavours
 
Apart from Indian travellers, Indian food does well too and ranks fifth in the most sought-after cuisine by tourists across the world. A recent gastronomy survey conducted by Hotels.com, which is part of Expedia, has found interesting insights into the dining habits of various nationalities across the globe. According to the study, Indian cuisine is loved by tourists across the world and is fifth in the list while Italian cuisine remains the world’s favourite food.

Aussies, Brits, Dutch, Kiwis – all love Indian food as do Indians of course. However, it is no surprise to note that Indians also enjoy Chinese food the most after home-cooked food. The French though seem to like Indian food over Chinese, Japanese, Spanish and even the Greek cuisine. Their affinity to Indian food follows their fondness towards French and Italian cuisines.

Our Asian counterparts, Koreans and Japanese, surprisingly seem to prefer Indian food the least. Italian cuisine, renowned for its pizza and pasta, ranked as the most popular fare among the survey respondents worldwide, followed by French, Thai, Chinese and Indian food. Of the major Asian cuisines (Chinese, Thai and Indian), Thai cuisine finds the most fans among international travellers.

Apart from Indians who enjoy dal makhni and rotis, Aussie travellers rated Indian food among the tastiest cuisines. However, although chicken tikka masala is popular among British, they seem to like Italian more than Indian food.

More than 4,000 travellers from Australia, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, France, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Spain, Sweden and UK participated in this Hotels.com survey carried out from October 25 to November 8, 2010.

For more, read http://blah.burrp.com/travel/destinations/crouching-tiger-ready-for-attack/6565

1 comment:

Poornima Seetharaman said...

Couldn't agree more! India has a vast cuisine, region wise delicacies; sweets, savories and what not!

I agree that the Koreans and Japs don't seem to prefer Indian food. Being in Korea, I've seen the kind of food they like. I think a lot of South Indian delicacies could match their taste. However, South Indian cuisine is not something they are familiar with....

They have a pancake like thing made of potato here. It looks and tastes a bit similar to our Dosa or Pesarattu...Also, some south Indian preparations taste a lot like Thai curry varieties. Maybe they will rate Indian food higher if they get treated to these ;)