Women Who Travel: Indian Women’s Travel in 2026 — Solo Trips, All-Women Groups, Spend and Destinations

Indian women took roughly eleven million trips abroad last year, and they are the majority of the country’s pilgrims overseas. They hold a third of India’s passports, far more in Kerala than in Bihar. Almost every other thing said about them — that solo travel has exploded, that all-women groups are the fastest-growing segment, that women now control the family travel budget — comes from booking platforms, not from any official count. This report sets out what the government data actually shows about women who travel, what the surveys and platforms add, and where the numbers stop.

1. How many Indian women travel abroad

The Bureau of Immigration records the sex of every Indian national who leaves the country, and the Ministry of Tourism publishes it. In 2025 women made up 34.12 per cent of 3,28,29,079 departures.^[1] Applied to the total, that is roughly 11.2 million departures by women — this report’s arithmetic, derived from the two published figures.^[1] As with all departure counts, these are trips, not people: a woman who flies abroad twice is counted twice.

The share moves slowly. Women were 31.4 per cent of departures in 2019, dipped to 29.7 per cent in 2020 and 28.3 per cent in 2021, and recovered to 32.5 per cent in 2022 and 33.8 per cent in 2023; it has held at about a third since, at 34.2 per cent in 2024 and 34.1 per cent in 2025.^[1] The ministry’s 2025 compendium, the source for our earlier report on Indian outbound travel, gives the 2024 figure to two decimals: 34.15 per cent.^[2]

Because total travel grew, the number of women travelling grew faster than the share suggests. Women’s departures rose from roughly 8.45 million in 2019 to 11.2 million in 2025, about 32.5 per cent, while men’s rose about 17.1 per cent — all derived from the ministry’s totals and shares.^[1]

Passports tell the same story from the other end. The Ministry of External Affairs told the Rajya Sabha in February 2024 that 9,26,24,661 passports were valid; its state-wise table, which sums to 8,82,71,293, shows 3,08,93,577 held by women.^[4] That is 35.0 per cent (derived), within a point of women’s share of departures.^[4]

The spread between states is wide. Women hold 42.6 per cent of valid passports in Kerala, 41.5 per cent in Maharashtra and 41.4 per cent in Karnataka, but 19.7 per cent in Uttar Pradesh and 10.1 per cent in Bihar (shares derived from the ministry’s state table).^[4] In absolute terms Kerala has the most women passport holders, 42,17,661, followed by Maharashtra at 40,75,512.^[4] In three north-eastern states women outnumber men: Mizoram (24,060 women to 14,923 men), Nagaland and Sikkim.^[4]

2. Where women go

Women’s share of travellers varies more by destination than by any other measure the Bureau publishes. In 2025 women were 48.90 per cent of Indian departures to Canada, 48.62 per cent to Australia, 48.16 per cent to New Zealand, 48.06 per cent to Ireland and 47.17 per cent to the United Kingdom.^[1] At the other end they were 30.23 per cent of departures to the UAE, 30.60 per cent to Saudi Arabia, 24.71 per cent to Kuwait and 12.28 per cent to China.^[1]

Leisure destinations split. Thailand, where 92.95 per cent of Indian departures are for leisure, is male-skewed: women were 30.61 per cent of its 22,27,169 Indian departures.^[1] Other holiday routes come much closer to balance: Georgia (47.14 per cent women), Switzerland (45.71 per cent), Indonesia (42.60 per cent) and Vietnam (40.90 per cent).^[1] The pattern is not new. In 2022, when women were 32.5 per cent of departures, the ministry listed Australia, Ireland, Israel, the UK, New Zealand, Canada and the United States among the top 10 countries for female departures.^[3]

Because the Gulf routes are so large, they still carry the most women in absolute terms. Applying each country’s female share to its departures, the UAE received about 2.61 million departures by Indian women in 2025, Saudi Arabia about 1.03 million, the United States about 0.93 million, Thailand about 0.68 million and the United Kingdom about 0.66 million (all derived).^[1]

Booking platforms show where women’s holidays, rather than all their trips, are going. Airbnb says the most-searched destinations abroad for Indian women in 2025 were Dubai, London, Bangkok, Paris, Ubud, Amsterdam, Tokyo and Rome, and that bookings to Kazbegi in Georgia rose more than 100 per cent year on year.^[14] At home, North and South Goa, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Jaipur, Gurugram and Pune District led women’s searches, and Dakshina Kannada and Mathura each saw bookings rise about 50 per cent.^[14]

On Scapia, a travel booking and credit-card platform, South-East Asia and the Indian subcontinent took 62.6 per cent of women’s outbound trips and Europe 14 per cent, and more than 60 per cent of the top international destinations women booked need no advance visa.^[15] Domestically, more than 80 per cent of women’s leisure bookings on the platform were for beaches rather than hill stations — Goa, Port Blair, Kovalam, Poovar, Varkala and Diu.^[15] Zostel, the hostel chain, recorded Mumbai as the top destination for solo women, with 5,609 bookings, followed by Gokarna, Lonavala, Goa, Jaipur and Varkala.^[18]

3. Why they go: the only female-majority purpose is pilgrimage

India Tourism Statistics 2026 cross-tabulates departures by sex and purpose of visit. Pilgrimage was the only purpose in which women were the majority in 2025, at 51.83 per cent. Women were 40.96 per cent of education departures, 39.53 per cent of leisure, 31.05 per cent of diaspora travel and 20.71 per cent of business and professional travel.^[1]

Read the other way, the mix of women’s trips differs sharply from men’s. About half of women’s departures were for leisure, against about 40 per cent of men’s; business was about 9 per cent of women’s departures and about 18 per cent of men’s; pilgrimage about 5.6 per cent against 2.7 per cent (all derived from the published purpose and sex shares).^[1] For the women who travel abroad, the trip is more often a holiday or a pilgrimage and less often work.

Pilgrimage abroad is also the oldest kind of trip. 19.58 per cent of pilgrimage departures were aged 55 to 64 and 13.46 per cent were 65 or older, and over half were aged 45 and older.^[1] Education, the second most female purpose, is the youngest: 68.41 per cent of student departures were aged 15 to 24.^[1]

4. Travel at home

Most travel by Indian women happens inside India, and the household survey that measures it records the sex of every traveller. The latest round, conducted from July 2025 to June 2026, lists a detailed table on the female share of single-member trips among its tables, but the published summary report does not include it.^[6] What the 2025-26 round does show is the shape of household travel: an average of 2.03 overnight visitors per trip, and pilgrimage and religious travel as the leading purpose of 48 of every 100 overnight trips in its year-long reference period.^[7]

The last round with a published split by sex, the NSS survey of 2014-15, found women accounted for about 48 per cent of overnight visitor-trips in both of its reference periods (derived from the survey’s estimated counts of female and total visitor-trips).^[5] Holiday, leisure and recreation was the visitor’s own purpose in 341 of every 1,000 women’s visitor-trips in the 365-day set, close to 358 for men; in the 30-day set, 885 of every 1,000 women’s visitor-trips were social visits against 848 for men, and business was 1 in 1,000 women’s trips against 19 for men.^[5]

The same survey is the only official measure of solo travel by women. Women made 30 per cent of solo overnight holiday trips, 49 per cent of solo health and medical trips and 28 per cent of solo pilgrimage trips; across all purposes in the 365-day set, women made 40 per cent of single-member trips.^[5] That was more than a decade ago, before low-cost flights, hostels and app-based booking reached most of the country. It is a baseline, not a current figure.

5. Solo travel: what is measured and what is not

No official series counts solo women travellers today. Everything below is platform data: it measures a company’s own customers, and it grows when the company grows. Treat the growth rates as direction, not size.

Zostel recorded 92,192 solo female bookings in 2025, up from 33,357 in 2018 and from a pandemic low of 18,372 in 2020.^[18] Its solo women stayed about 1.6 nights on average, and 28.8 per cent came back for more than one stay.^[18] Atlys, a visa-processing platform, said international travel applications from Indian women rose 22 per cent in a year and that solo trips made up 20.6 per cent of applications.^[16] The Hosteller says almost 70 per cent of its solo bookers in Delhi are women.^[12]

The growth claims are larger and less comparable. IntrCity SmartBus, a bus operator, reported a 135 per cent rise in solo women travellers between 2023 and 2025.^[23] Pickyourtrail says online searches for solo female travel rose 72 per cent year on year.^[17] Scapia reported solo travel by women on its platform growing nearly nine times year on year — a figure that says as much about a young platform’s growth as about women’s travel.^[15]

What the platform data agree on is the shape of the trip: short, repeatable, and increasingly to places with good transport and low visa friction — Mumbai, Goa, Gokarna and Varkala at home; Thailand, Vietnam, Japan and parts of Europe abroad, which Atlys names as the leading solo destinations for women.^[16][18]

6. Pilgrimage, Haj and the yatra

Faith is where women travel in the largest proportion. Abroad, they were 51.83 per cent of pilgrimage departures in 2025.^[1] The clearest single case is the Haj. Of the 1.22 lakh pilgrims travelling under the Haj Committee of India’s quota in 2026, 60,810 are women and 61,625 men.^[9]

Since 2018, women aged 45 and over may perform Haj without a mehram, a male guardian, travelling in groups of four or more. 5,446 are doing so in 2026, the most since the rule changed, and 4,477 of them are from Kerala.^[9] The count was 1,171 in 2018, 2,230 in 2019, 1,796 in 2022, 3,950 in 2023, 4,558 in 2024 and 3,266 in 2025.^[9][8] Kerala dominates because its Shafi’i school permits the practice and because many Keralite women already travel to the Gulf, where family members work.^[9]

At home the pattern repeats on a smaller, better-documented scale. Cleartrip says solo women made up 17.64 per cent of its Amarnath Yatra bookings in 2026, up from 15.13 per cent in 2025 and nearly four times the share of solo men at 4.43 per cent; bookings by solo women grew 20 per cent, against 6.4 per cent for solo men.^[10] The Hosteller’s founder describes older women travelling in groups to Varanasi for spiritual reasons.^[12] Scapia’s data show Gen Z women choosing Varanasi and Rishikesh and millennial women Shirdi, Haridwar, Amritsar and Velankanni.^[15]

7. All-women groups and trips with friends

Travel with other women is the most talked-about segment in the industry and one of the least measured. There is no official count of women-only group trips. The platform figures are consistent in direction.

On Atlys, group travel made up 35 per cent of women’s visa applications, often tied to bachelorettes, birthdays or career milestones, with Dubai, Bali, Bangkok, Singapore and Malaysia the leading destinations.^[16] Pickyourtrail says 60-70 per cent of Indian women travelling abroad in groups go with friends, and that group trips by women are confirmed 4-5 months ahead, against 60-75 days for honeymoons.^[17] On Airbnb, duo travel was the most popular trip type for Indian women, followed by small groups.^[14]

Operators report the demand in their own books. Thomas Cook India and SOTC reported 35 per cent growth in demand from women travellers in their 2025 report.^[19] Supply is following: Kerala’s women- inclusive tourism network had registered 17,631 women as tour operators, homestay owners and transport providers.^[24]

8. Safety and how it shapes the choice

Every survey of Indian women travellers puts safety first. In an Outlook Traveller–Toluna survey of 1,214 women aged 18 to 45 in 14 cities, nearly 90 per cent said they prioritise safety when choosing a destination and 57 per cent wanted well-monitored public transport with women’s compartments.^[20] Almost 59 per cent said they had faced gender-based harassment while travelling in India, yet nearly 80 per cent called India largely women-friendly for travel.^[20] South India was rated the safest region by 37 per cent; over 40 per cent named North India the least safe.^[20]

The broader measure is the National Annual Report and Index on Women’s Safety 2025, which surveyed 12,770 women in 31 cities and put the national safety score at 65 per cent; Kohima, Visakhapatnam and Bhubaneswar ranked safest.^[21] Seven per cent of women reported harassment in public spaces in 2024, 14 per cent of those under 24, and public transport was named as a hotspot by 29 per cent.^[21] Six in ten women felt safe in their city; 40 per cent did not.^[22]

Safety of tourists is a state subject. The Ministry of Tourism says states from Kerala to Jammu and Kashmir have deployed tourist police in some form, and it has sanctioned about ₹16.79 crore to Madhya Pradesh under its Safe Tourism Destination for Women scheme, funded from the Nirbhaya Fund.^[11] Atlys describes the leading solo destinations for Indian women — Thailand, Vietnam, Japan and parts of Europe — as known for safety, affordability and culture, and Scapia finds that most of the top destinations women book need no advance visa.^[16][15]

9. Who plans, who pays, what they spend

No official source splits travel spending by sex. The Reserve Bank’s remittance data and UN Tourism’s expenditure series are national totals, and the NSS household survey records spending per trip, not per traveller’s sex. What exists is survey and platform data on who plans, books and spends.

In Booking.com’s How India Travels 2025 survey, conducted in August 2025 with more than 3,000 responses across tier-I, II and III cities, 73 per cent said women play a more active role in trip planning than ever; 33 per cent of women often lead planning and booking for their families or groups, and 16 per cent typically plan most trips.^[12] In the earlier Outlook Traveller–Toluna survey, around 60 per cent of women were actively involved in trip decisions, but for 8 out of 10, family still shaped decisions about travelling solo.^[20]

On spend, the figures are operators’ own. Thomas Cook India says women travellers are spending 15-20 per cent more year on year, with budgets of ₹1-1.5 lakh for domestic trips and ₹4-5 lakh for long-haul destinations.^[19] Pickyourtrail puts the average international traveller’s spend on its platform at about ₹1 lakh per person and women-only trips at ₹1.1-1.2 lakh, 12-20 per cent higher.^[17] It also says women aged 45 to 60 influence up to 80 per cent of spending in the segment.^[17] On Scapia, nearly a third of millennial women chose luxury stays, the highest of any age group, while Gen Z women mostly booked mid-range.^[15]

10. The age profile

The government publishes departures by sex and by age, but not by both together, so there is no official age profile of women travellers. The overall profile is young: 25-34 year-olds were 27.64 per cent of all departures in 2025 and 35-44 year-olds 24.66 per cent.^[1] The purposes in which women are best represented pull in opposite directions — pilgrimage is the oldest purpose, education the youngest.^[1]

Industry sources describe two peaks. Booking.com’s “trip architects” — the planners of family and group trips — are predominantly women aged 26 to 55.^[13] Pickyourtrail says 40-46 per cent of its women travellers are Gen Z or younger millennials, while women aged 45 to 60 influence up to 80 per cent of spending.^[17] IntrCity SmartBus found Gen Z women, aged 18 to 25, were 40.7 per cent of solo female travellers on its buses in 2024.^[25] And in the Outlook Traveller–Toluna survey, 16 per cent of women aged 18 to 24 preferred pilgrimage destinations, nearly four times the 4 per cent across all ages.^[20]

11. Where this data is weakest

Departures are trips, not women. The Bureau of Immigration count records every departure, so a frequent traveller is counted many times. “11.2 million” is trips by women, derived, not the number of women who travelled.^[1]

Domestic figures by sex are old. The 2025-26 NSS round lists a table on the female share of solo trips, but it is not in the published summary; the most recent published split is from 2014-15.^[6][5]

There is no official spending by sex and no official sex-by-age table. Spend and age figures here are surveys and platform data and are labelled as such.

Platform growth is not market growth. A “nine times” or “135 per cent” rise on one platform measures that platform’s customers. None of the platforms publishes its base.^[15][23]

Not covered for lack of data: what women pack and shop for trips (no India survey with a published method was found), and the traveller counts of women-only tour operators, which are self-reported.

12. Frequently Asked Questions

Related research: Indian Outbound Travel 2026 · Resort Wear Market in India 2026 · Destination Weddings in India 2026