JUST CHILL: The Travel & Living channel features luxury holiday destinations and (top) Kylie Kwong, who hosts a popular cookery show

Last week, Rahul Singh was in Barbados, swinging away by the sea to the beats of reggae. Just a few days ago, he did a tour of France and its vineyards, tasting wine and cheese under a mellow sun. Sometime in the near future, he hopes to visit Senegal ? good music there, he’s been told. And what’s great is that the couch potato doesn’t have to move an inch to do a journey of the world.

Singh is sitting at home and globe trotting. As Indians get ready to travel this summer, the New Delhi-based columnist reclines on his favourite sofa and finalises his travel plans. BBC has something on the West Indies, NDTV Profit on spas in Europe. And then there is Discovery’s Travel & Living channel, of course, full of tales of travel. No, Singh is not complaining.

All around him, travel plans are being chalked out. His friend, Baby, hopes to go to Morocco this year. Her friend, Nandini, loves to travel too. She is going to be out this summer, but doesn’t yet know where, having earlier covered a host of countries from Burma to Vietnam. And there is Shefali, a home maker, already in Scotland with her husband and son. In recent times, she has been to Switzerland, Australia and Egypt.

Gone are those days when the Indian traveller spent the summer months in Dalhousie, and winter in Goa. The Indian is travelling like never before ? and the travel and airlines industries are upbeat. Airlines are aisle full, travel agents are working around the clock and no hotel can be booked for love or for money. And keeping pace with the wanderlust is television.

The growing viewership of Discovery Communications’ one-and-a-half-year old travel and lifestyle channel is a case in point. Executives quote viewership data culled from television monitoring agency TAM to show that, in the last few months, the channel has managed to get more viewers than Star World and Zee Caf?, the two English language entertainment channels. Among the three players, it has the maximum channel share at around 47 per cent, while Star World follows at 35 per cent and Zee Caf? at 18 per cent. Among the English news channels, its share remains smaller than that of NDTV 24X7 and CNN-IBN but is more than that of Headlines Today, BBC and CNN.

Purists would say that Travel & Living and Star World are not comparable, considering that the latter is a general entertainment channel focusing on soaps and serials, while the former is reality programming. “But there is no channel in the same genre and we couldn’t look at ourselves in isolation. So we’ve tried to benchmark ourselves against a channel which we think has the same audience profile ? the upscale SEC A category (read affluent consumer) viewer,” says Aditya P. Tripathi, vice president (Lifestyle) at Discovery Networks India.

The fact that Discovery’s Travel & Living has managed to gather considerable eyeballs since its launch in November 2004 reflects a couple of trends. One, the viewing habits of Indian couch potatoes are changing and, two, the lifestyle of the Indian consumer is changing even faster. Media experts in the industry are of the opinion that in TV, niche genres are gaining at the expense of general entertainment channels.

“The world over, media consumption is getting localised, more personal and more specific,” says C.V.L. Srinivas, CEO, Maxus, the media buying company of the WPP group. “Except for a few big events and shows that would engage the nation as a whole, niche targeting (of viewers/ consumers) will set in. The shift will not be sudden but gradual,” he forecasts.

Television viewers in India are getting fragmented as they exercise the option to choose from a plethora of channels and programmes available on the small screen. “Viewers are flirting with more channels,” says Basabdutta Chowdhuri, Madison Advertising’s chief operating officer in Delhi. “For instance, earlier if 10 channels gave you a certain amount of viewership share, today 13 channels will give you that.”

On the other hand, the profile of the affluent Indian consumer ? the section that Travel & Living is targeting ? is also changing. The channel primarily covers the travel, food and lifestyle sectors ? areas where a quiet revolution is taking place.

Sample some numbers on the travel industry. In 2005, Indians travelling abroad touched almost 6 million, up from 4.8 million in 2003. Between 2005 and 2014, the demand for overseas travel is expected to grow by 8.8 per cent a year. According to Luxury Trends 2006, a survey of the Affluent Indian consumer by The Knowledge Company, among people who travelled abroad, 31 per cent made a trip in the last six months while 60 per cent travelled at least once in the last one year.

Travel is on the rise for there is more money to spend, travelling itself is getting cheaper. And one of the reasons for travel is also the Indian’s discovery of gourmet food. The media, including TV channels, have opened up a whole new world of cuisine for the adventurous Indian.

Today dining is a matter of preference and comfort level rather than economics,” says the survey. “The popularity of dining out and choice of meal is a clear indication of the changing market trends and consumer demand.”

Not surprisingly, food shows are the core of lifestyle channels. Sunil, a Delhi-based graphics designer, says he can’t do without the Anthony Bourdain show and Floyd’s India ? two popular programmes on Travel & Living.

So it’s not difficult to see why Discovery rolled out Travel & Living in the first place. “Our reason to push for the channel was the changing economic situation in the country. And changing confidence and aspirational levels of the people,” says Aditya Tripathi.

Travel & Living was launched with a clear focus of catering to the top 30 cities of the country and targeting the top end consumer ? basically people who buy plasma TVs and the N series Nokia phones, says Tripathi. To be sure, today Travel & Living has the very same premium products ? from top-end cars, phones, financial products to tourism boards and airlines ? advertising on the channel. Tripathi does not wish to disclose the channel’s total revenues but says that “if we were doing a Rs 5 lakh deal with a brand, we are sealing Rs 40 lakh deals with the advertiser today.”

With a growing market just waiting to be captured, Travel & Living has been shopping for more and more lifestyle shows from around the world, as well as creating programmes out of India. Three productions on travel, food and Indian weddings are underway.

Graphics artist Sunil would be happy. Something Indian wouldn’t be a bad idea, for he has been facing trouble figuring out all the ingredients in Kylie Kwong’s cookery show. A bit of travel, though, could shed light on those esoteric features.