The Covid pandemic and global wars were widely expected to choke international travel.
But each time, it came back faster than expected, said VFS Global founder and CEO Zubin Karkaria at the 24th Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.
Thirty years ago, a foreign holiday was possibly an Indian’s highest social desire after buying a house. “Now, it’s not a luxury anymore. So, there’s a huge amount of new travellers that are coming in. The choice has shifted from parents to students, who now weigh a host of factors before making a decision.
“The passport penetration in India is around 8%. Their travel to Europe is growing by almost 70% a year, he added, with Germany, Austria, Spain and France drawing students who once defaulted to the US, UK, Canada or Australia. Karkaria, then a travel company CEO in Mumbai, pitched outsourcing the visa process to the US embassy in 2001, arguing that officers should spend 25 minutes assessing applicants and five on paperwork, not the reverse. A six-month pilot in Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Pune grew into a homegrown unicorn that now serves 71 governments through 4,000 centres in 170 countries.
Crises cause only brief anxiety or logistical hurdles, during which domestic travel picks up, Karkaria said, adding that post-Covid “revenge travel” showed that the urge never waned. India, he said, has become the “powerhouse” of global mobility, and foreign visits have turned from aspiration to necessity. It’s not a desire anymore; it’s a necessity,” he said. The VFS Global CEO also said that Indian students travelling abroad are changing direction. He also said that while artificial intelligence will ease travel, it will not decide who gets a visa. “It will be a support but not the decision maker,” Karkaria said, adding that no country’s laws currently allow AI to make that call. Governments have a sovereign right over entry and “security is paramount”, he said, though “for the genuine traveller, I still see no worries”.
“Whatever geopolitics or whatever environmental conditions are there in the world, travel will always come back, and it will come back with a vengeance,” he added.
