India - Domestic Tourism: NSS 65th Round, Schedule 21.1, July 2008 - June 2009

A package is a combination of transport and any one or more chargeable travel services (e.g., accommodation, meals/food, entertainment and/or sightseeing, etc.) and sold by tour operators through travel agencies or directly to final consumers as a single product for a single price. The components of a package tour might be pre-established or tailor-made, in which case, the visitor chooses a combination of services he/she wishes to acquire from a pre-established list of such services. If such a package is availed of for a major part of time in a trip, such a trip should be considered as a package trip. Note that, travelling by say, a hired video coach, for sightseeing where expenditure on food and entry tickets to sightseeing spots are borne separately by the visitors should not be taken as a package. If the expenditure on transport and one or more chargeable travel services availed for some time during the trip does not cover the whole trip but covers only a minor time of the duration of the trip then such a trip should not be considered as package trip although the trip has a package component. Therefore, a trip which is not a package trip may have both package and non-package components. Similarly, a package trip may also contain non-package component in addition to its package component, e.g., a visitor may avail himself of accommodation and other services in the package through some tour operator but make some special sight-seeing arrangements in some places of visit in the trip on his own. If a trip is a package trip then code '1' should be given, otherwise code '2' should be recorded. It may be noted here that a package trip must have a package component but not vice versa.