The ICC (International Cricket Council) Champions Trophy is drawing Indian sports enthusiasts across the globe, with ticket windows for India games closing within minutes, according to the official ICC travel partner, Bharat Army Travels.
The sports ticketing, hospitality and experiential travel platform sold 1,000 packages and a majority of them were bought by Indians. Indians didn't shy away from spending as much as $1,200 for travel packages.
The tournament started on February 19, and the final will played on March 9.
"Our allocation for this tournament was 1,000 packages, planned across the three India group games, the semi-final and the final, and everything is sold out," Rakesh Patel, founder of The Bharat Army, told Moneycontrol.
The packages range from $350 for standard facilities like match ticket and stadium transfer to $1,200 for premium services, which include flights and hotels, among others, he said.
Indian fans are pinning their hopes on the strong performance of the Men in Blue to see them in the finals. A seat in the finals may open up more ticket slots
There are some reserves for the final and some more slots may open up but the stadium is relatively small, so there won't be much availability and this is quite a high-demand tournament, he added.
At Dubai International Cricket Stadium, team India will lock horns in the first semi-final of the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 on March 4. Previously, India and Australia have met on four occasions with the Men in Blue securing two wins, Australia one and one game yielding no result.
India started the tournament with a six-wicket victory over Bangladesh. The team then won against Pakistan and later trumped New Zealand. Topping the Group A points table, team India has entered the much awaited semi-final clash against Australia.
While the travel package demand for ICC Champions Trophy was high, Patel said that the timing of the tournament and the number of days that they had to go to market limited how much they could sell in terms of packages.
Cricket craze
"It has been a relatively small allocation (for ICC Champions Trophy). We recently concluded the T20 World Cup. We had a set of 5,000 Indian cricket fans travel through us to New York and the West Indies. And for the World Cup in India, we had up to 18,000 travel packages sold. So, this amount is relatively small in comparison to the previous tournaments," Patel said.
As many as 80 percent of Bharat Army's members and repeat customers come from India. But there is a lot of interest from markets like the US and the UK, depending on where the tournaments are being held, he added.
"In 2019, we sold 11,000 packages for the World Cup in England. A third of those packages were sold to US-based Indians who travelled from the US to England. For the recent (ICC Men's T20) World Cup in the US and the Caribbean, 80 percent of the packages were sold to Indians living across America," he said.
With America being quite a vast country, there are people travelling from all across the US. So, the biggest growth area for Bharat Army was our reach in the states, Patel noted. "We've seen a spike in our interest from our US-based Indian members who want to travel with us around the world," he said.
The ICC is also trying to grow the game in the US and with our reach growing in the country, it will mean that for future tournaments, there'll be more interest from a lot of Indians that live in the US.
The T20 World Cup last year was also the biggest tournament for the company in terms of sales.
For the T20 World Cup, out of the 5,000 packages sold, 80 percent was sold for the matches in New York that India played. This gives you an idea of the high level of interest from Indians that were living in the US. Every single one of those matches was sold out. There was a high level of interest from fans, not just in the US, but from Canada and surrounding regions as well," he said.
The Border-Gavaskar Trophy last year also saw an estimated 10,000 Indians flying to Australia with packages ranging from Rs 1 lakh and going up to Rs 5 lakh.
Cricket alone is not driving sports tourism among Indians.
Beyond 22 yards
Football, tennis, car racing and golf are some of the sports that are catching the fancy of Indians.
While cricket makes up 90 percent of travel package sales of the company, Patel is seeing the traction extending to other sports as well.
The interest is skewed towards cricket but it's becoming a multiple sports space now when it comes to travel demand for sports, he said, adding that he expects a drastic change in the next five to 10 years.
"Many Indians travelled to Qatar to catch the football world cup without having an Indian team playing in the tournament. And, in terms of packages, Indians were ready to pay upwards of $1,500 per package," he said.
The Indian economy is performing very well and people are spending on sports travel more than any other developing country around the world, Patel said. "We've seen a massive spike in the consumer spend on sports travel. And that has been a continual trend over the last few years."
He said Indians are also showing interest for Wimbledon (tennis), Formula One (international car racing), UEFA (Union of European Football Associations), and FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) tournaments.
For the 2024 Olympics, Indians spent lakhs, with corporate packages ranging from Rs 2.5 to Rs 4 lakh per person, and HNI (high net worth individual) packages worth between Rs 12 lakh and 15 lakh. Some Indians bought opening ceremony packages for as much as Rs 25 lakh.
It is estimated that sports tourism is growing faster than overall tourism in India.
While travel is growing at 10 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR), sports travel is growing at a 17 percent CAGR, according to DreamSetGo, a sports travel and experiences company from the house of Dream Sports.
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