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
Estée Lauder to shed 10,000 jobs as new boss bets on digital shift
The cosmetics giant raises its profit outlook but stays silent on a possible merger with Spain’s Puig, as job cuts deepen and a three-year sales slump weighs on the turnaround
NEW YORK: Stéphane de La Faverie is not done cutting. Estée Lauder announced on Friday that it plans to eliminate as many as 3,000 additional jobs, taking its total redundancy programme to as many as 10,000 roles, up from a previous target of 7,000 announced a year ago. The company, which owns La Mer, The Ordinary, Tom Ford, and Aveda, employs roughly 57,000 people worldwide. The mathematics of what is now being contemplated is stark.
The fresh round of cuts is expected to generate a further $200 million in savings, bringing the total annual savings from the programme to as much as $1.2 billion before taxes. That money, De La Faverie has made clear, will be ploughed back into the turnaround.
A CEO in a hurry
De La Faverie, who took the helm in January 2025, inherited a company that had endured three consecutive years of annual sales declines. His response has been to move fast and cut deep. A significant portion of the latest redundancies reflects his push to reduce headcount at US department stores, long a cornerstone of Estée Lauder’s distribution model but now a channel in structural decline. In their place, he is accelerating the shift toward faster-growing online platforms, including Amazon.com and TikTok Shop, a pivot that is reshaping not just where Estée Lauder sells but how it thinks about its customers.
The numbers are moving in the right direction
Despite the pain, there are signs the medicine is working. Estée Lauder raised its profit outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year, guiding for adjusted earnings per share in the range of $2.35 to $2.45, above analyst estimates and a notable step up from the $2.05 to $2.25 range it had guided for in February. Organic net sales growth is expected to come in at 3 per cent, the company said, at the high end of the range it set out in February.
The share price tells a mixed story. After De La Faverie took charge, the stock surged nearly 60 per cent, buoyed by investor optimism that a longtime company insider could finally arrest the decline. But 2026 has been rougher: the shares have fallen 27 per cent this year, weighed down by disappointing February results and the overhang of unresolved merger talks with Spanish beauty giant Puig Brands SA. The company gave no additional details about those discussions on Friday, leaving the market to guess.
Silence on Puig
The proposed tie-up with Puig remains the most consequential unknown hanging over Estée Lauder. A deal with the Barcelona-based group, which owns brands including Carolina Herrera and Rabanne, would reshape the global luxury beauty landscape. But with nothing new to say and a turnaround still very much in progress, De La Faverie is asking investors to trust the process.
Three years of sales declines, 10,000 job cuts, and a merger that may or may not happen. At Estée Lauder, the overhaul has barely started.
