chennai travel search engines are reporting a surge in search activities prior to diwali for instance travel search engine wego has seen a spike in flight searches 20 days prior to the festival with searches for international locales increasing almost 50 over the last year the biggest change compared to last year was that almost 98 of traffic to the site was for domestic travel we have witnessed a growing interest in a variety of international destinations from indian travellers throughout the year outside of the traditionally popular locations jackson fernandez managing director of wego india said travellers in this country are becoming far more adventurous and they spend a great deal more time online researching alternate travel experiences especially through their smartphones he added these results indicate that tourism offices are becoming more innovative with their destination marketing strategies successfully capturing the attention of indian travellers airlines too have introduced attractive and competitive pricing structures to lure more travellers to international destinations fernandez said singapore dubai bangkok kuala lumpur and bali were the most popular international city searches while new delhi mumbai goa bangalore and kolkata topped the domestic travel list the largest growth by country was for long haul destinations such as the united states china indonesia the uk canada france saudi arabia and australia in fact 52 countries experienced growth in outbound travel from india this year travellers in delhi topped the number of outbound international flight searches by user followed by mumbai bangalore and chennai typically people travel home to spend time with their families to celebrate diwali but weve also seen an increase in searches to popular local holiday destinations such as goa although this annual festival is one of the largest in the country it appears that many travellers are happy to leave travel planning until closer to the event fernandez said