Millennials are ditching the traditional options when giving presents to loved ones and are instead opting for vouchers and travel packages. By Team Viva

The joy of unwrapping a large box with bare hands while in your pajamas is a moment of indescribable excitement. Whether it’s a birthday, anniversary, Christmas or wedding, we look forward to seeing how much thought our loved ones put into making us feel special. While material gifts undoubtedly bring joy to the recipient, at the same time they can be limiting. Thus, millennials are moving away from this dilemma and are instead opting to gift experiences rather than physical things. Anything from travel packages to a balloon ride with a romantic dinner or a meal in the sky has become acceptable options.

Riddhi Gupta had a special gift for her parents — a package for the Char Dham pilgrimage, complete with flight tickets, hotel stay, temple visits and local sightseeing that they could do at their convenience. “This year, we could not celebrate the festival together. So, this was the ideal gift for them as they wanted to take this trip since so long,” said the Hyderabad-based homemaker.

“Our research indicate that gifting an experience is far more socially connecting than giving material gifts. Our guests now seek unique personalised experiences, which are specially curated as per their requirements,” said Ashok Reddy, founder and CEO of GrabOn.

“Users prefer gifting e-gift vouchers and cards because of the convenience of usage and ease of redemption. The freedom to choose their own gifts without settling down for one explains the overall preference of gift cards,” he added. These gift cards can be used as presents for Christmas or may be for several other occasions. GrabOn alone has has documented a 90 per cent increase in transactions during the festive season, starting with Dussehra and continuing to Diwali.

The idea of giving a trip as a gift is a good one, for people across all generations. Whether you’re gifting a parent or a spouse or a friend, gathering novel experiences are more important to the millennial generation.

The consumer behaviour study by the company revealed experiential gifts, be it travel, shopping, entertainment or dining, brings people a lot closer than traditional gift baskets or hampers. This may be one of the factors why more and more people are inclined towards gifting e-gift cards and vouchers to their loved ones.

“Recently gift vouchers are being used by couples and individuals as a gifting option. Earlier people would want to give out probably a shirt or something very personal, to show that they have put in an extra effort. But 30 per cent of people tend to return those gifts, while 50-60 per cent might not return it but they end up being unhappy for sure,” said Arvind Prabhakar, CEO of GyFTR.com.

“This dissatisfaction led to a new idea of giving vouchers and people easily go up to Rs 5,000 and more. In the  next couple of years, 50 per cent of the people would definitely move to voucher and e-gift cards,” he predicts.

Vouchers have been around for a while, either as something which is given to business partners or as an incentive or as part of compensation, but the new trend of giving these have come to be a mainstay.