With the ICC World Cup round the corner, travel to UK has seen a sharp spike. By Team Viva

Karishma is a cricket fan, her husband loves tennis instead. So as part of their couple therapy and compromise, they are flying into London this summer, she to catch India in action and he to watch a legend smash it at the Centre Court at Wimbledon.   Then the two will take a small break in Portugal, end up in Paris and fly back home. 

One of the largest and fastest growing segments of the tourism industry — sports tourism and the notion of people travelling to watch sporting action live — has been an established revenue stream for quite some time. But “the concept is now fast gathering momentum among Indians and is booming to a great extent,” says Heena Akhtar, co-founder of tripXOXO. In fact, the  Indian Premier League generated its own travelling fan base across venues, which is now getting replicated for big ticket international events, too.

With less than a month for the ICC World Cup to commence, tourism players have recorded an increase in the number of Indians travelling to witness the biggest cricket event. Indians’ unparalleled passion for the game can be attributed as one of the key drivers for sports/cricket tourism in India.

British High Commission’s (BHC) spokesperson apprises us that besides the seasonal increase in Indians travelling to the UK during the peak summertime, the demand for visas is “even higher due to the world cup this year.”

The demand is such that the BHC’s visa services partner, VFS Global, is receiving more than 3,500 applications a day from India. They have already processed over 2,00,000 UK visa applications. In March and April alone, over 1,32,000 applications were submitted, which accounted for 65 per cent of the overall count in January to April.

Karan Anand, head relationships, Cox and Kings, too, feels that the demand has increased exponentially. He says that if we compare the numbers to the previous tournaments, there is a 30 per cent hike in the percentage of bookings, all thanks to the peak tourist season of Europe being coupled with the biggest sporting event.

“While about 65 per cent of the travellers come from metro cities, there are a considerable number of cricket lovers covering the long mile from the tie-r 2 cities as well. The highest demand is for dates around India Vs Pakistan (June 16) and India Vs Australia (June 9),” he adds.

According to ICC research, India constitutes 90 per cent of one billion cricket fans. Balu Ramachandran, head of air and distribution, Cleartrip says that, with such a large cricket fan base, the World Cup would be a major attraction for travelling to England this June.

The World Cup is the proverbial cherry on the cake for those planning a vacation to UK. Sunil Gupta, managing director and co, Avis India, estimated the hike as 40-50 per cent, thanks to the craze for cricket among Indians.

Anand Menon, brand leader, travel tours, FCM Travel Solutions, says that they have also witnessed a surge in the bookings and enquiries with the onset of the World Cup. There’s 44 per cent increase in travellers. England, Wales and Ireland are the destinations that are in demand now owing to the mega event. He further adds that this is synonymous to the last time, when the event took place in Australia and New Zealand in 2015.

The British-Irish visa scheme has played a significant role in providing added impetus to the increase in demand for Indians travelling to Ireland this year.