Brands
Slow and steady wins the stay as Indian travellers rethink holidays in 2025
MUMBAI: Gone are the days of racing through postcards. In 2025, Indian travellers eased off the accelerator, choosing fewer destinations, longer stays and calmer itineraries over rushed, checklist-style holidays, according to the Thrillophilia 2025 Multi-Day Travel Index.
Based on confirmed and completed trips rather than search intent, the index captures how Indians actually travelled in 2025 compared with 2024. The verdict points to a maturing leisure market where reliability, comfort and depth of experience mattered more than ticking off multiple locations or chasing discounts.
Analysing thousands of executed journeys, Thrillophilia found a clear redesign of holidays. Single-base trips with day excursions rose 36 per cent year on year, while tours covering four or more cities fell 24 per cent. Medium-length breaks of six to nine nights grew 19 per cent, emerging as the most popular format across families, couples and wellness travellers.
Over-packed schedules lost favour. Slower, better-paced itineraries increased 21 per cent, while tightly packed plans declined 17 per cent. Custom and semi-custom trips moved firmly into the mainstream, growing 18 per cent and 16 per cent respectively, as large group tours slipped 21 per cent.
“2025 was the year travellers stopped asking how many places they could cover and started asking how well a trip would run,” said Thrillophilia co-founder Abhishek Daga. “Peace of mind replaced price as the real definition of value.”
Domestic travel continued to anchor leisure demand, especially destinations that allow relaxed pacing and dependable logistics. Kerala and Rajasthan remained steady favourites, while North East India rose 31 per cent, Kashmir 35 per cent and Ladakh 31 per cent, helped by better connectivity and experience-led interest.
Short-haul international travel surged fastest. Thailand grew 21 per cent, Singapore 24 per cent, Abu Dhabi 36 per cent, Vietnam 31 per cent and the Philippines 39 per cent, driven by visa ease and compact routing. Long-haul travel stayed niche but meaningful, with Japan, Kenya and Iceland each posting close to 39 per cent growth, largely for milestone journeys.
Different segments revealed distinct shifts. Gen Z and young professionals travelled more often, with multiple trips up 51 per cent and adventure-led itineraries rising 58 per cent. Families leaned into comfort and planning, with custom family trips up 21 per cent and rushed formats down 18 per cent. Couples ditched templated honeymoons, pushing custom plans up 47 per cent and privacy-led stays up 42 per cent.
Luxury travel also slowed down deliberately. Custom luxury itineraries increased 26 per cent, trips with fewer destinations grew 28 per cent, and wellness-focused journeys rose 24 per cent, redefining indulgence as precision rather than excess.
The index concludes that value in Indian leisure travel is no longer measured by distance covered, but by how smoothly a journey unfolds. In 2025, travelling less and better clearly became more.
Brands
Faber-Castell India appoints Sunaina Haldar as director – marketing
With stints at Tata, SleepyCat and ADF Foods under her belt, Haldar is primed to redraw Faber-Castell’s brand story
MUMBAI: Faber-Castell India has poached Sunaina Haldar from ADF Foods, appointing her director – marketing as the German stationery brand looks to muscle up in a category that is rapidly reinventing itself around creativity and self-expression.
Haldar hit the ground running. “My first couple of weeks have been incredibly energising, understanding consumers, visiting markets, engaging with retailers and immersing myself into the world of Faber-Castell Group,” she said.
She arrives with considerable firepower. At ADF Foods, Haldar ran marketing across India and international markets for a portfolio spanning Ashoka, Aeroplane, Camel and ADF Soul. Before that, she was vice-president – marketing at direct-to-consumer mattress brand SleepyCat, where she helmed brand, content and performance marketing. Her résumé also includes a stint leading marketing, new product development and CRM for Tata SmartFoodz at Tata Consumer Products, no small proving ground.
Between corporate roles, Haldar also operated as a fractional CMO for early-stage startups, building marketing strategy and operational structures from scratch, a signal that she knows how to move fast with limited resources.
With 18 years straddling FMCG, D2C and the startup world, Haldar now takes the reins at a brand that has long owned the classroom but is clearly hungry for the living room. In a stationery market where the pencil has become a lifestyle statement, Faber-Castell has picked someone who knows exactly how to sell that story.
