Can Sports Tourism Put India’s Smaller Cities On The Global Map?
More visitors are eager to dig deeper into the host cities of sporting events held across India, but can they also help revive local tourism?
BySneha Chakraborty Published: Jun 29, 2025 06:00 PM UTC6 min read
For many visitors attending the annual flurry of Indian Premier League (IPL) matches at the HPCA Stadium in Dharamsala, the chance to visit the residence of the Dalai Lama or hike up Triund was as much a part of their itinerary as the star-studded Twenty20 (T20) cricket tournament, one of the biggest sports tourism events in India. Similarly, when the Khelo India Youth Games 2025 concluded in Bihar on May 15, a good many people made their way to Rajgir and Gaya before heading back home.
Increasingly, instead of merely jetting off to a location, going all in on the game day only to catch the next flight back, travellers are intentionally lingering longer and looking beyond the tourist-trodden path, searching for immersive ways to connect with the host destination. Booking.com clocked the onset of the trend last year when their Travel Trends data for 2024 found that a whopping 56 percent of Indians were attending sporting events to turn the occasion into a trip. This shift is translating into measurable travel growth for smaller towns, with hotel bookings, local experiences, and intercity transport seeing an uptick around the event period. But as spectators become temporary tourists, spending more days (and money) in these non-metropolitan centres, do they gradually yield the power to put these places on the broader tourism map?
Can sporting events become the tourism hat-trick small towns need?
Where the crowd goes, the city grows
Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities are witnessing travel spikes as more visitors seek to experience beyond the stadium and engage in cultural immersion. “We are seeing a clear correlation between major sporting events and increases in travel to non-metropolitan cities,” said Tavleen Bhatia, Chief Marketing and Revenue Officer at Cleartrip.
According to data shared by Bhatia, air bookings to Dharamshala surged by approximately 25 percent during the IPL, while Guwahati and Chandigarh also experienced a spike in flight bookings. Similarly, the Khelo India Youth Games resulted in a noticeable increase in travel. “Patna saw about a 7 percent rise in air bookings and a 21 percent increase in hotel bookings, while Gaya recorded an approximately 23 percent jump in hotel stays.”
Event-driven ‘micro-itineraries’
Vuda Kailasagiri, Visakhapatnam | Image credit: Eshwar/Unsplash
That shift is happening not just because of the new wave of sporting tourism but also because ‘micro-trips’ or ‘micro-cations’ are becoming increasingly popular, particularly as more travellers want to break away from their work-life routine without the need for a lengthy holiday or to twiddle their thumbs until retirement.
Speaking to Travel + Leisure Asia (India, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Macau), SD Nandakumar, President and Country Head – Holidays & Corporate Tours, SOTC Travel, elaborated on this trend. “Our recently released India Holiday Report revealed that 22 percent of the respondents were actively considering event-based travel. These events are helping spotlight non-metro and tier 2 and tier 3 regions, creating new demand cycles and enriching the travel experience through curated micro-breaks.”
A collaboration between Thomas Cook India and SOTC Travel, the India Holiday Report surveyed over 2,500 participants, and Devesh Pradhan, a 20-year-old student at Utkal University in Bhubaneswar, was one of them. Pradhan told this writer how he spent a whole month planning his trip to Assam, where the match between the Rajasthan Royals (RR) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) was hosted.
This full-time student from Mumbai was seeking a destination that would host an RR match but wouldn’t be as crowded as the state capitals. “I went to see an IPL match in Visakhapatnam last year, and something about the coastal setting and proximity to beaches made me want to catch another match this year outside the populous locations. Since I knew some matches would be held in Barsapara Cricket Stadium, I knew I had to plan my travel to squeeze in a trip to Manas National Park,” Pradhan said.
“The crowd was thinner than what you’d see in bigger cities, and the locals really stepped up (something I also experienced in Visakhapatnam) with small eateries serving home-cooked meals, guiding us around, and making the whole trip feel personal,” he added.
Additionally, explore the most beautiful places to visit in Assam for an immersive experience.