‘Indians - Kings of last-minute travel bookings’

Indians are the kings of last-minute bookings globally, according to data provided by travel technology company RateGain. Over 74 per cent of all bookings happen within the same week as the date of travel.

“A week prior to Holi this year, we evaluated the data and noticed that there was a dip in booking for the long weekend — 18 percent lower. We found that it could be due to the financial year-end and exams. However, a week later, we noticed almost a 30 per cent hike in bookings with some sectors like Goa and Shimla seeing a spike of almost 90 per cent,” Kamesh Shukla, EVP and Head-APMEA at RateGain told BusinessLine.

RateGain provides SaaS products to help travel and hospitality companies with cognitive revenue management, smart e-distribution, and brand engagement.

Travellers in most other countries plan their trips in advance. “We are now witnessing demand spikes for future bookings in summer across the world, especially to Indonesia, Egypt and the UAE. Denmark is seeing a spike in June of about 69 per cent compared with May, and the Czech Republic seeing a spike of 71 per cent in July,” Shukla said.

Travel recovery

Data from RateGain distribution services DHISCO and RezGain revealed that on a month-on-month basis between January and February 2021, the travel recovery rate for the US was 39 per cent and 82 per cent, respectively and for India 46 per cent and 75 per cent. Indonesia and the UAE too have seen a steady month-on-month recovery. RateGain said travel recovery bounced back with growing vaccination numbers.

On a month-on-month basis in December 2020, there was a travel demand of 100 per cent. However, this dipped in January 2021 to 46 per cent. According to experts at RateGain, this does not mean that there were fewer bookings in January 2021, but that January 2020 saw more number of tourists arrive in the country compared with December 2019.

Nonetheless, this dip in January 2021 was short-lived as bookings surged to 75 per cent in February 2021.

“It would be interesting to see how the four-fold increase in daily Covid cases impacts travel in the summer. As a country that has gotten used to last-minute travel bookings, it would be harder to predict how exactly this rise in cases would impact the travel sector,” RateGain said.