Pilgrimage and religious travel accounted for the largest share of overnight trips, at 48%, while health and medical travel emerged as one of the costliest categories for households.
Business trips, meanwhile, recorded the highest average expenditure among overnight trips undertaken in the last 30 days.
The survey, conducted between July 2025 and June 2026 as part of the NSS 80th round, covered 2.46 lakh households across 24,778 first-stage sampling units.
For overnight trips undertaken during the last 365 days for purposes such as holidaying, leisure and recreation, pilgrimage and religion, health and medical care, and shopping, 48% were for pilgrimage and religious purposes. Health and medical trips accounted for 30% of such trips, making it the second-largest category overall.
The pattern differed somewhat between rural and urban households. In rural areas, health and medical trips accounted for 38.4% of overnight trips, while holidaying, leisure and recreation accounted for 36.4% in urban areas.
Medical trips among the costliest
From a household-budget perspective, health and medical travel stood out for its high expenditure. The average expenditure, including package and non-package components, was ₹29,454 for rural households and ₹41,649 for urban households for such overnight trips.
This was the highest expenditure among the categories covered for overnight trips during the last 365 days.
For leisure and holiday trips, transport was the largest component of non-package expenditure. It accounted for 32.6% of expenditure in rural areas and 37.3% in urban areas, followed by food and accommodation.
The survey also found that around 80% of overnight visitors stayed for five days or less, while the average trip size was 2.03 overnight visitors.
Business trips cost the most in the shorter-term data
For overnight trips undertaken during the last 30 days with business, social, education and training and other purposes, social visits dominated, accounting for 89% of trips.
However, business travel involved the highest average household expenditure. Rural households spent an average ₹5,179 per business trip, while the corresponding figure for urban households was ₹6,934.
This makes business travel the highest-spending category in the 30-day reference period, despite social trips accounting for the overwhelming majority of trips.
Shopping dominates spending on same-day trips
The survey also looked at trips that did not involve an overnight stay. 65.1% of rural households and 46.2% of urban households undertook at least one same-day trip during the last 30 days.
Social visits were the most common same-day trips, accounting for 32% of rural and 37% of urban same-day trips. Shopping was next, accounting for 29% of rural and 17% of urban trips.
But when it came to expenditure, shopping was the biggest component. It accounted for 51% of expenditure on same-day trips in rural areas and 41% in urban areas. Shopping trips also recorded the highest expenditure among same-day trips, followed by health and medical trips.
The survey found that rural households generated 185 trips per 100 tourist households for same-day travel, compared with 156 trips per 100 urban tourist households.
More households taking multiple overnight trips
Among households that had undertaken at least one overnight trip in the preceding year, rural households generated 127 overnight trips per 100 tourist households, up from 118 in 2014-15. In urban areas, the figure rose to 132 trips per 100 tourist households, compared with 121 in 2014-15.
For holidaying, leisure and recreation trips, May and October emerged as the peak months.
The data also showed differences in travel preferences by location. Buses accounted for 32% of visitor-trips from rural households for leisure and holiday purposes, while trains had a 35% share among urban households. Hotels and guesthouses accounted for 36% of urban visitor-trips, whereas other non-commercial accommodation was the largest category in rural areas at 28%.