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Festival of colours, Holi, seems to be adding colour to the travel, hospitality and airline industry. Ahead of the long weekend of Holi, travel agencies are seeing at least a 40-50 per cent increase in bookings.
Players like Thomas Cook India are seeing over 3x bookings for the weekend starting Friday, March 18,for domestic favourites like Himachal, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Kashmir, Andamans, Goa, etc.
According to Rajeev Kale-President & Country Head, Holidays, MICE, Visa-Thomas Cook (India) Limited, demand is at an all-time high and most hill stations are reporting unprecedented occupancy, especially for locations like Gulmarg, Srinagar, Shimla, Manali, Nainital, Udaipur and Goa. SOTC is also seeing 1.5x higher bookings than other weeks in March.
Online Travel Agent (OTA) EaseMyTrip’s co-founder Prashant Pitti said that with a significant fall in Covid-19 cases, there has been a strong revival of the travel sentiment as searches and bookings for long weekends have grown multi-fold. “For the Holi weekend, we have witnessed a booking jump of 40-50 per cent as compared to last year, which is a strong testament to the underlying pent-up travel demand,” Pitti said.
Weekend boost to the sector
This is the first festival in two years since covid-19, that the travel industry is coinciding with a weekend, and at a time when the cases are negligible. This, according to industry players, has been a good boost for the travel industry.
A spokesperson at SaffronStays said that it has curated special packages just for this Holi. The person explained, “The last two Holis were a bleak affair. And while we are still not completely out of the pandemic, one can still celebrate the festival in the company of those they love at a private villa. What’s better? It’s a long weekend, too!”
As a ripple effect of the low cases and higher travel sentiment, hospitality companies like Oyo too are witnessing a strong increase in bookings in March vs February. This, according to a company spokesperson, shows customers’ willingness to travel across India.
Since the travel, hospitality and airline industries have witnessed a two-year-long-lull, now, industry sources have said that players are likely to focus on yields instead of offering heavy discounts.
“We have also witnessed a 10-20 per cent rise in airfares during this period due to the strong travel demand and rising fuel costs. Additionally, hotel rates are also in the higher range due to the peak season demand. There has been a significant increase in bookings for 5-star hotels during this period, which can mainly be attributed to their high standards of sanitisation protocols,” EaseMyTrip’s Pitti said.
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