Mumbai: The sight of a female passenger in formals, carrying a laptop and travelling abroad sans family, is still a rarity in India -but not in China. Currently, Chinese female business travellers outnumber their Indian counterparts by 10 to one.
In 2011, one crore seats on flights that flew out of China were occupied by female business travellers. India is likely to see that kind of number by 2030.
The rise in this travel segment is linked to growth of the middle class in the Asia-Pacific region — from 700 million people in 2011, it is expected to reach 2.1 billion by 2030, according to a study by Amadeus, a tech partner for the global travel industry. Most of the growth will come from India, China and Indonesia, which will consequently also account for a parallel rise in the number of female business travellers.
08/03/13 Manju V/Times of India
