Press Note on Domestic Tourism Expenditure Survey July 2025 to June 2026

1. At a Glance

• Domestic Tourism Expenditure Survey (DTES) 2025-26 is a nationwide survey by the National Statistics Office (NSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), run alongside the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) under the 80th Round of the National Sample Survey (NSS) [1][2].
• Conducted over a full year, 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026, to generate data on household/visitor characteristics and trip-related expenditure for domestic overnight tourism [2][3].
• Data will feed the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) prepared by the Ministry of Tourism (MoT), which measures tourism's economic contribution and informs the UNWTO-linked Travel & Tourism Development Index (TTDI) [3].
• Relevant for Prelims (survey nomenclature, NSS round number, nodal bodies) and Mains GS-III (tourism economy, statistical infrastructure).

2. Why in the News

• PIB released a press note (PRID=2313894) giving preliminary/interim findings of the DTES 2025-26, showing pilgrimage & religious purposes account for ~48 of every 100 overnight domestic trips, followed by health & medical purposes (~30 trips) [4].
• This follows the survey's launch (mid-2025) and subsequent All-India Workshop of Trainers (AIWOT) held at ISB Hyderabad, 28-29 May 2025 [5][1].

3. Background & Evolution

• NSS surveys are conducted in "rounds"; the ongoing round is the 80th Round, covering Socio-Economic (SE) subjects including Health, Domestic Tourism, and Household Travel [6].
• DTES/NHTS were formally announced/launched by NSO around July-August 2025 [1][2].
• NHTS is the first-ever pan-India National Household Travel Survey, marking a new data product distinct from earlier tourism surveys [2].
• Predecessor: earlier PIB releases (e.g., PRID=2137007, PRID=2139977) announced the launch of DTES and NHTS as new NSO survey instruments [1].
• Training cascade: National → State-level trainer workshops preceded field enumeration (state-level training reported via regional PIB units) [5].

4. Core Static Facts

Item	Detail
Nodal agency	National Statistics Office (NSO), Field Operations Division, MoSPI [1]
Survey round	NSS 80th Round, Socio-Economic Survey [6]
Surveys under this round	Domestic Tourism Expenditure Survey (DTES) — Schedule 21.1; National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) [2][3]
Duration	1 July 2025 – 30 June 2026 (one year) [3]
Data user ministry	Ministry of Tourism (MoT), for Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) [3]
Coverage	All States/UTs of India; origin and destination State/UT of trips recorded [4]
Reference period for trips	Overnight domestic trips of duration ≤180 days, completed during last 365 days [4]
Expenditure heads captured	Accommodation, food & drink, transport, shopping, recreation, religious, cultural, sporting, health-related activities [4]
Key interim finding	~48% of overnight trips for pilgrimage & religious purposes; ~30% for health & medical purposes [4]
Training venue	Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad, 28-29 May 2025 (AIWOT) [1]

5. Multi-Dimensional Analysis

Economic

• TSA outputs from DTES will quantify tourism's contribution to GDP, employment, and state-level tourism economies, aiding policy targeting [3].
• Findings on high pilgrimage/health-tourism shares can guide infrastructure investment (spiritual tourism circuits, medical tourism hubs) [4].

Administrative

• Requires large-scale field coordination between NSO's central and state field units; trainer cascade model (AIWOT → state training → enumerators) [1][5].
• First-ever pan-India NHTS represents a new statistical product requiring fresh survey instruments/schedules (Schedule 21.1 for DTES) [2].

Social

• Dominance of pilgrimage/religious travel (48%) reflects India's socio-cultural travel patterns, relevant to religious tourism policy (e.g., Char Dham, Kumbh-type flows) [4].
• Health & medical trips (30%) point to domestic medical-tourism demand, relevant to healthcare-infrastructure planning in destination states [4].

Scientific/Technological (Statistical)

• Reflects MoSPI's modernization of survey methodology (round-based, schedule-driven NSS design) to produce satellite accounts aligned with international standards (TSA framework used globally) [3].

Geopolitical/Strategic (via international linkage)

• TSA-derived data feeds into India's Travel & Tourism Development Index (TTDI) ranking, published in coordination with global tourism benchmarking (UNWTO-linked) [3].

6. Recent Developments (last 12-18 months)

• Aug 2024 onward: Reports indicated NSS 80th Round would include new tourism, health, and household travel surveys [background context, not separately cited].
• 28-29 May 2025: All-India Workshop of Trainers (AIWOT) for DTES and NHTS held at ISB Hyderabad [1].
• 1 July 2025: DTES and NHTS field survey officially commenced under NSS 80th Round [3][2].
• ~August 2025: MoSPI (via NSO/GoIStats) announced on official channels that two new nationwide surveys were running July 2025–June 2026 [2].
• September 2026: PIB press note (PRID=2313894) released interim findings — pilgrimage/religious (48%) and health/medical (30%) as leading trip purposes [4].

7. Prelims Hooks

• DTES and NHTS are conducted under the 80th Round of the National Sample Survey (NSS) [1].
• Nodal implementing body: National Statistics Office (NSO), under MoSPI [1].
• Survey period: 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026 (one full year) [3].
• DTES corresponds to Schedule 21.1 of NSS 80th Round [3].
• NHTS is the first-ever pan-India National Household Travel Survey [2].
• DTES data is meant for MoT's preparation of the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA), not for MoSPI's own use alone [3].
• Trip reference period: overnight trips of ≤180 days duration, completed within the last 365 days [4].
• Leading trip purpose found: pilgrimage & religious activities (~48%) [4].
• Second-leading purpose: health & medical (~30%) [4].
• DTES 2025-26 covers all States/UTs, recording both origin and destination State/UT [4].
• AIWOT for DTES/NHTS was held at ISB, Hyderabad (28-29 May 2025) [1].
• TSA outputs link to the Travel & Tourism Development Index (TTDI), an international tourism competitiveness metric [3].

8. Why India Is Asking These Questions Again After 17 Years

• The last full domestic tourism survey was done in 2008-09
• NSS 65th Round produced Report No. 536, Domestic Tourism in India, 2008-09, under schedule 21.1 [7].
• DTES 2025-26 carries the same schedule number, 21.1 [3].

• So for about 17 years India had no fresh household-level picture of who travels, why, and how much they spend.

• Meanwhile the official tourism-economy number was being stretched from an old base

• India's latest Tourism Satellite Account is the 3rd TSA, with base year 2015-16 [8].
• Tourism's direct share is put at 2.72% of GDP and 13.34% of total employment (direct plus indirect) [8].
• But the later-year figures are updated using National Accounts data, not fresh travel data [8].

• Plain meaning: the spending pattern inside that number is still a 2015-16 pattern. Everything after COVID — the shift to short religious trips, online booking, new expressways — is not inside it.

• This is why DTES matters more than a routine survey notice. It refreshes the raw ingredient of the TSA. Until it reports, every claim about "tourism contributes X% of GDP" rests on a decade-old spending pattern [8].

9. What the 48% Pilgrimage Figure Does Not Tell You

• It counts trips, not money
• The figure is the share of overnight trips by purpose — about 48 of every 100 [4].
• The survey separately records spending on accommodation, food, transport, shopping, recreation and religious activities [4].
• A pilgrimage trip and a two-week holiday count as one trip each. They do not cost the same.

• So a sentence like "pilgrimage drives India's tourism economy" is not yet proved by this number. Wait for the expenditure tables.

• It counts only one purpose per trip

• The earlier round of this survey classified each trip by its leading purpose — a single main reason [7].
• Real trips are mixed: a family visits relatives, stops at a temple, and buys clothes.

• Whatever the respondent names first becomes the whole trip. Multi-purpose travel disappears from the table.

• It counts only overnight trips

• The reference is overnight trips of up to 180 days, finished in the last 365 days [4].
• Much Indian religious travel is same-day — a morning bus to a temple town and back by night.
• Those trips are outside this headline. The true weight of religious travel is therefore not 48%; 48% is its weight inside the overnight slice only.

10. Thirty Percent Travelling for Treatment Is a Health Finding First

• Read it as a gap in local healthcare, not as tourism demand
• About 30 of every 100 overnight trips are for health and medical reasons [4].
• A person who must stay overnight in another town for treatment is counted as a domestic visitor, and their hospital-related spending is recorded as tourism expenditure [4].
• That inflates tourism's economic contribution using money that is really distress spending on illness.

• In an answer, say this plainly: a high medical share is evidence that care is not available near home.

• The survey already collects the one thing that would prove it

• DTES records both the origin State/UT and the destination State/UT of every trip [4].
• MoSPI should publish this origin-destination table for medical trips, not just the all-India percentage.

• That single table would show which states export patients and which states absorb them — usable directly by health planners, not only by the Ministry of Tourism.

• Same logic for the pilgrimage share. Origin-destination data would tell PRASHAD and Swadesh Darshan planners which temple towns actually receive out-of-state overnight crowds, instead of spreading money evenly across listed sites [4].

11. The Numbers Depend on What Families Remember

• The answers come from memory, over a full year
• A household is asked about trips completed in the last 365 days [4].
• People remember the big annual holiday. They forget the small trip taken nine months ago, and they rarely remember exactly what they spent on food or a bus ticket.
• Big, rare, expensive trips get reported well. Short, frequent, cheap trips get under-reported.

• That is one more reason the purpose shares should be read as a rough ranking, not as exact percentages.

• Why the one-year field period is still the right design

• Field work runs 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026 [3].
• Indian travel is seasonal: Kumbh-type gatherings, school holidays, wedding season, monsoon. A three-month survey would take whichever season it fell in and call it the national pattern.
• Spreading enumeration across all twelve months is what makes the annual estimate believable.

• The cost is time. Field work ends June 2026, so the full report — and the refreshed TSA that depends on it — arrives later still [3].

• How to use the interim figure until then. Treat 48% and 30% as directional signals from an ongoing survey, and say so in your answer. Writing them as settled final statistics is the error examiners catch.

12. Two Tourism Numbers That Are Not the Same Thing

• India already had a tourism count before DTES — but it counts something else
• MoSPI's Statistical Year Book reports Domestic Tourist Visits (DTVs) in its tourism chapter [9].
• A DTV is a visit, not a person. One traveller who stops in three states on one trip adds to the count in each.

• So DTVs tell you about footfall at destinations. They cannot tell you how many households travel, or what they spend.

• DTES measures the household side instead

• It asks households about their own trips and their own spending, across all States/UTs [4].

• From that you can get spending per trip and per person — which DTVs can never give.

• Exam use: if a question asks how India measures domestic tourism, the strong answer names both — a destination-side count (DTVs) [9] and a household-side survey (DTES) [4] — and explains why a satellite account needs the second one [3].

13. Anchors for Answers

• Data: ~48% of overnight domestic trips for pilgrimage and religious purposes, ~30% for health and medical — share of trips, not of spending [4]
• Data: Tourism's direct share put at 2.72% of GDP and 13.34% of total employment (direct plus indirect), from the 3rd Tourism Satellite Account with base year 2015-16 [8]
• Report: NSS 65th Round, Report No. 536 — Domestic Tourism in India, 2008-09, schedule 21.1: the last comparable survey before DTES 2025-26 [7]
• Design point: Reference period is overnight trips up to 180 days completed in the last 365 days; origin and destination State/UT both recorded [4]
• Scheme: PRASHAD and Swadesh Darshan — pilgrimage and circuit infrastructure schemes whose site selection could be tested against DTES origin-destination data [4]
• Contrast: Domestic Tourist Visits (DTVs) in MoSPI's Statistical Year Book count visits at destinations; DTES counts household trips and spending [9][4]

14. Mains Relevance

• GS-III: Indian Economy — mobilization of resources, growth & development, infrastructure (tourism sector); also Science & Technology/Statistics governance.
• GS-II: Government policies & interventions — statistical institutions (MoSPI/NSO) and their role in evidence-based policymaking.
• Possible question stems: 1. Discuss the significance of the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) in measuring the economic contribution of tourism in India. How does the Domestic Tourism Expenditure Survey (2025-26) support this exercise? 2. India's domestic tourism is dominated by pilgrimage and health-related travel. Examine the policy implications of this trend for infrastructure planning at destination states. 3. Evaluate the role of the National Sample Survey (NSS) rounds in strengthening India's statistical system, with reference to newly introduced surveys like DTES and NHTS.

15. Related Topics to Study Next

• National Sample Survey (NSS) system & rounds — foundational statistical architecture behind DTES/NHTS.
• Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) — the analytical framework DTES feeds into.
• Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) — another MoSPI flagship survey, useful for comparing survey methodologies.
• Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) — related MoSPI expenditure survey for comparison.
• Travel & Tourism Development Index (TTDI) — international benchmarking tool tourism data feeds into.
• National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) — companion survey, first pan-India of its kind.
• Char Dham Yatra / Kumbh Mela tourism management — real-world pilgrimage tourism policy context.
• Ministry of Tourism schemes (Swadesh Darshan, PRASHAD) — policy schemes linked to pilgrimage/health tourism promotion.

16. Common Errors / Trap Areas

• Confusing implementing agency (NSO/MoSPI) with the data-user ministry (Ministry of Tourism) — DTES is conducted by NSO but primarily serves MoT's TSA needs [3].
• Mixing up DTES (expenditure-focused) with NHTS (travel-behavior/mode-focused) — both run concurrently under the same NSS 80th Round but are distinct schedules [2][3].
• Assuming the survey period is a calendar year (Jan-Dec) — it actually runs July 2025 to June 2026, a fiscal/survey-year cycle [3].
• Treating NHTS as a repeat/older survey — it is explicitly the first-ever pan-India edition [2].
• Misreading the "48% pilgrimage" figure as share of tourism expenditure — it refers to share of overnight trips by purpose, not expenditure share [4].