Cost Index methodology

What the dataset covers

The Cost Index publishes representative 2026 INR price points for nine travel-spend categories across all 488 NakshIQ-covered destinations. Each row is a (destination, category, season) triple with a median, a low-end (budget), and a high-end (splurge) figure, plus the unit ( per_night, per_day, per_unit, or one_time).

Categories: homestay, hostel dorm, hotel (3★ mid-range), hotel (4–5★ splurge), food (3 meals), taxi (8-hour day hire), intercity transport (per leg), permits & entry, activity / entry fee.

The model

Each row is computed as base × state × altitude × difficulty × budget_tier × season:

1. Base rates

Nine category baselines calibrated against observed 2026 market prices across a generic mid-tier Indian destination in shoulder season. These are the starting points before any multiplier is applied.

• Homestay (per night): typical ₹2,200 · budget ₹1,000 · splurge ₹4,500
• Hotel mid (3★, per night): typical ₹3,800 · budget ₹2,200 · splurge ₹6,500
• Hotel splurge (4–5★, per night): typical ₹12,000 · budget ₹7,000 · splurge ₹30,000
• Hostel dorm bed (per night): typical ₹650 · budget ₹400 · splurge ₹1,100
• Food (per day, 3 meals): typical ₹800 · budget ₹400 · splurge ₹1,800
• Taxi (8-hour day hire): typical ₹3,000 · budget ₹1,800 · splurge ₹5,500
• Intercity transport (per leg): typical ₹1,400 · budget ₹600 · splurge ₹3,500
• Permits & entry (one time): typical ₹400 · low ₹100 · high ₹1,800
• Activity / entry fee (per unit): typical ₹1,500 · budget ₹400 · splurge ₹4,500

2. State multiplier

Each of the 36 states/UTs has a multiplier reflecting observed market premium:

• Lakshadweep ×1.65 · Andaman & Nicobar ×1.50 · Ladakh ×1.40
• Arunachal Pradesh ×1.30 · Goa ×1.30 · Delhi ×1.25 · Sikkim ×1.20
• Karnataka / Tamil Nadu / Maharashtra / Kerala: ×0.95–1.10
• Odisha / Bihar / Chhattisgarh ×0.85 (lower market premium)

3. Altitude multiplier

Destinations above 3,500m get +20% (remote logistics, short season). Destinations 2,000–3,500m get +10%. Below 2,000m is baseline.

4. Difficulty multiplier

Extreme-difficulty destinations get +20%, hard-difficulty +15%. Reflects expedition-grade logistics, specialised operators, and gear requirements.

5. Budget-tier multiplier

The destination's overall budget-tier (1–4) scales the whole row: 0.75× for tier-1 budget destinations, 1.00× for tier-2 mid, 1.25× for tier-3 premium, 1.60× for tier-4 luxury.

6. Season multiplier

Each destination's best_months array classifies each month as:

• Peak — in best_months window · default ×1.45
• Shoulder — adjacent to best_months · ×1.00
• Low — outside both · ×0.65 (reflects off-season discounting or closures)

Some destinations carry a peak override — Goa's NYE window (×1.80), Rann Utsav (×1.55), Hornbill Festival Kohima (×1.55), Leh summer peak (×1.55), Pushkar Mela (×1.60).

7. Destination-specific overrides

Some destinations carry category-specific overrides that sidestep the base-rate model — for example, Pangong Lake taxi day-hire is fixed at ₹5,500 because the Leh-Pangong-Leh circuit is a known flat rate, not a derivation. National-park safari fees (Corbett, Kaziranga, Kanha, Bandhavgarh) override the activity-sample category. Permit fees for Arunachal restricted zones and Hanle / Umling La are explicit.

Data provenance

Baselines trace to:

• State-tourism-department tariff circulars (Himachal, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Kerala, Gujarat, and all permit-issuing states)
• IHM and IATO hospitality-average benchmarks for mid-range and 3★ hotel pricing
• NHAI and state-transport-authority taxi rate circulars (published fare charts)
• NakshIQ editorial field surveys (2026 Q2) for homestay and hostel-dorm typical rates
• Published park-entry fees from Project Tiger and state forest departments

Every row in the dataset carries a source_ref tag. The current corpus tag is editorial_model_2026_Q2. Rows refreshed against new source data get a newer tag and are timestamped via reviewed_at.

Update cadence

Quarterly refresh. The base rates, state multipliers, and destination overrides are re-evaluated against observed market data each quarter. When a category drifts by more than ±10% against the published baseline, affected rows are re-derived and the reviewed_at stamp is updated.

Major events (annual Pushkar Mela date announcement, Rann Utsav calendar, Kerala tourism-board tariff revision) trigger a mid-quarter refresh of the specific destinations affected.

What this data doesn't claim

• Every specific property will not match these numbers. A 5★ Marriott costs more than our hotel-splurge figure suggests; a roadside dhaba costs less than our food-per-day figure. The dataset is a median signal, not a quote.
• Seasonal spikes outside the model (election-year weddings, regional strikes, peak-season fuel surcharges) are not captured.
• Flight pricing is not in scope. Use IndiGo/Vistara fare search directly — dynamic pricing makes static figures misleading.
• Currency: all figures are Indian Rupees (INR). USD/EUR conversions depend on live rates and are not part of the dataset.