The January-to-March quarter is generally a lean season for the airline industry. There are fewer holidays and most families with children prefer to stay home because of exams. This is probably why the aviation business decided to put all its marketing muscle into St Valentine’s Day.

Over the past week or so, airlines and their travel partners decided to use February 14 as a red-letter day to push advance bookings for the months ahead.

Earlier this week, SpiceJet said it would offer one lakh free seats on domestic routes as part of its ‘Share the Love’ scheme.

Anybody who flies SpiceJet between February 10 and 28 can participate in a lucky draw to win one free domestic ticket for travel in the months ahead.

Noel Swain, Executive Vice-President — Supplier Relations at Cleartrip said: “This is a tactical campaign by SpiceJet to create preference for the brand in a traditional lean-booking month. Since the number of free tickets is large, it could make customers choose SpiceJet since they stand a chance to win a free ticket.”  

GoAir launched a similar scheme last week in which flyers were eligible for a discount of ₹1,414 on round trip fares in about 84 routes. The significance of 02/14/2014 was not lost on travel web sites either.

Cleartrip offered discounts up to ₹1,414 on domestic roundtrip flights for travel up to February 28. Musafir went a step ahead with discounts of ₹400 on every flight ticket and ₹1,000 off on hotel bookings made until February 20.

International airlines and travel agencies too are riding the V-day mania. Cox & Kings introduced a ₹10,000 discount on an 11-day trip to New Zealand, originally priced at ₹2,99,990 per couple. The offer is valid till March 31. British Airways has announced a significant branding initiative for India, positioned entirely around the V-day fever.

The strategy seems to be bearing fruit, going by early indicators. As on February 10, Yatra.com had recorded more than 50 per cent increase in bookings for certain flight sectors during the Valentine’s Day period, says its president, Sharat Dhall.

Data shows that the maximum increase of 224 per cent was seen on the Bangalore-Mumbai route, followed by Mumbai-Goa (94 per cent) and Hyderabad-Delhi (93 per cent).

Falling on a Friday, Valentine’s Day has also pushed up the demand for holiday packages. Dhall says hotel bookings (recorded in the past four months) have risen by almost 156 per cent year-on-year for top destinations such as Goa, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Srinagar and Kochi.

As Mohit Gupta, Chief Business Officer — Holidays, MakeMyTrip points out, “Though Valentine’s Day bookings are mostly last-minute, early trends suggest a 15-25 per cent spike in booking numbers this year for most destinations.”

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