Booked clients are equally as excited as we are as they can now fulfil long-awaited journeys rather than rearranging their diaries once again to slide dates further forward.

The greatest joy, though, has been expressed by the legions of drivers, guides, sherpas and support workers who play a large – and significant part – in the overall success of any holiday and have been among the worst impacted by the pandemic.

As an important and influential force in the region, India’s neighbours are watching with keen interest and we believe its decision is likely to reverberate through south and south-east Asia, encouraging other countries with well-vaccinated populations to follow suit and open with confidence, further stabilising travel.

So what awaits international travellers travelling to India in 2022?

Far from resigning itself to fate, the tourism industry followed each other’s lead in preparing for the reopening. They used the downtime to double vaccinate, train their teams at every touchpoint and ensure everyone is ready to operate under new health and safety protocols.

In a strategic move to keep the wheels of the industry oiled and to generate some much-needed revenue, the "Bharat Deko" ("See India") campaign was launched to invite and encourage high-end domestic travellers to explore their own backyard. Locals have loved the experience and are rebooking, adding significantly to the industry’s strength and future stability.

While we have been in hibernation, some spectacular new properties with truly sustainable credentials have opened in India including the luxurious Raffles, just outside Udaipur, and the Six Senses, Fort Barwa. These add new highs to rural, cultural experiences in Rajasthan and lift the luxury status of a holiday experience in India even higher.

A host of excellent new walking trails, safari experiences and river cruises are also being promoted in some beautiful and rarely visited parts of the country, including the remote Himalayan village passes in Ladakh beyond the Kashmir Valley, and the far northeastern states of India bordering Myanmar, Tibet and China – all of which are now readily accessible. We anticipate these will be among the growth area for the country as travellers seek to connect with nature, away from city hubs.

As TransIndus prepares to leave the most challenging and debilitating phase of its 32-year history behind, we are aware the path ahead will be long and difficult, but we are ready. From the experience of other destinations that opened a few months earlier, we note travellers are leaning much more towards longer, slower, deeper, more immersive experiences and seeking to connect with local cultural experiences and even give something back to the host community.

As a socially responsible company, TransIndus both welcomes and encourages this, and will facilitate any clients willing to give an hour or two of their valuable time to engage in simple local initiatives such as speaking to a classroom of young children about their lives or holding a first aid class in a village.

Amazingly, this is the kind of holiday TransIndus started promoting all those years ago, with travellers enjoying more leisurely and meaningful escapes over three or four weeks. If the pandemic has brought us back full circle to TransIndus’s central ethos of a more considered way of travel, perhaps we can take some solace in the hardships we have all had to endure over the past two years.

Amrit Singh is founder and managing director of India and Asia tailor-made specialist operator TransIndus.