The coronavirus epidemic has hit Indians’ plans for international holidays this summer. Future bookings trends have dipped by at least 20-25 per cent, according to most online travel sites.
Sabina Chopra, Co-Founder and COO of online travel agency (OTA) Yatra.com said that though it was too early to predict any drastic impact, the company anticipates “a drop of about 20-25 per cent in terms of future bookings”.
Travel firms like EaseMyTrip and MakeMyTrip have seen significant dips in bookings to affected regions, and a rise in cancellations. The most-hit markets currently are China and South-East Asia. Singapore, Vietnam, and South Korea are also on the radar and have seen cancellations and drop in travel.
According to travel firm FCM Travel Solutions, travellers are postponing their travel plans and the early summer bookings that they generally see during this season are yet to start flowing in.
“We have seen a dip of 12 -13 per cent in leisure and 10-11 per cent in corporate travellers from India to China,” Anand Menon, Brand Leader of FCM Travel Solutions, said. MakeMyTrip too expects a dip in business travel.
Meanwhile, the Health Ministry has suspended visa to citizens of Italy, Iran, South Korea, and Japan.
GOQii, a smart-tech-enabled preventive healthcare company, surveyed 10,000 people on several parameters regarding coronavirus, including their impact on travel. According to the results of the survey 6.57 per cent people have actually cancelled or are planning to cancel their booked travel plans.
EaseMyTrip has seen a rise in flight cancellations on its platform. Travellers are wary of making fresh bookings to the affected locations and airfares to these destinations have dropped by 20-30 per cent.
According to data provided by RateGain, a travel and hotel software company, there has been a 21 per cent fall in daily bookings of hotels due to coronavirus for regional OTAs based out of APAC, and a 3 per cent fall in daily booking of hotels for global OTAs.
On the flipside
While travel in South East Asia is clearly impacted, summer vacation demand trends have seen a switch to other markets and a significant rise in domestic tourism.
The players have also seen a hike in enquires to domestic destinations such as Andaman & Nicobar, Goa, Ujjain, and North-East, among others.
“In the light of the current situation, with the spotlight shifting to India, we are witnessing a significant uptake in demand of over 15 per cent for domestic tourism,” Rajeev Kale, President & Country Head - Leisure Travel & M.I.C.E, Thomas Cook (India) Limited, said.
According to EaseMyTrip, domestically, offbeat hill stations have started witnessing a rise in hotel and bus bookings, while internationally, travellers are planning to go for short-haul destinations that are completely unaffected by the current situation.
According to OTAs like MakeMyTrip, EaseMyTrip, Yatra and SOTC Travel Limited, Sri Lanka, UAE and Bhutan are preferred spots for international summer travel.
“New alternate international destinations are also emerging strongly this year and these include Oman, Maldives, Mauritius (short-haul) as well as Kenya, Egypt, Jordan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and South Africa. Interestingly, USA has seen a significant surge of over 22 per cent growth in demand,” Kale added.
Offers and packages
To lure customers into booking tour packages, players like SOTC Travel are designing tour packages for domestic and international destinations catering to diverse budgets, as an alternative to some of the affected parts of the world.
Low-cost carrier GoAir on Tuesday announced a three-day summer sale, offering domestic and international flight tickets starting at ₹955 and ₹5,799 respectively.