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The pandemic-hit Indian hospitality industry can hope to improve their revenue streams with the average room rates (ARRs) rising by at least 10-15 per cent compared to 2019.
Data shared by Online Travel Aggregator (OTA) EaseMyTrip showed that New Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Goa, and Kolkata are the top destinations witnessing the highest jump in average room rates.
Demand up
Nishant Pitti, CEO & Co-Founder, EaseMyTrip, said, “The pandemic had halted the business temporarily but the demand has gone up significantly now,” hence hotels are making up for the losses incurred by them over the past 18 months.
He explained that higher vaccination rates is one of the motivators for the higher demand. “The festive season and occasions such as Diwali weekend has seen a jump of more than 50 per cent in terms of room bookings,” he added.
But where are people travelling to?
According to data from Ixigo, there has been a 15 per cent higher search rate for hotels in Jaipur over the previous year, whereas those who enjoy cold weather have searched for properties in Leh. These destinations have generated at least 81 per cent higher searches than the previous year.
Searches for Goa and Andaman have gone up by a whopping 55 per cent and 72 per cent, respectively.
An Ixigo spokesperson said, "Beach destinations are a favourite pick amongst travellers this Diwali. We have seen an increase of 55-60 per cent in search queries for beach destinations like Goa and Andaman for travel in the first week of November. Jaipur, Varanasi, Leh and Rishikesh are the other popular choices amongst travellers this year."
Higher airfares
With air passenger traffic hitting record levels during the ongoing festive season, domestic airfares are also going through the roof. According to online travel aggregators, tariffs for Diwali week were 100 per cent higher than the pre-pandemic festival period in 2019.
However, the top-10 searched destinations didn’t see much difference over Diwali last year. Both years Varanasi and Jaipur held on to the first and second position, but the party hub Goa took over the third positions from Kerala this year which was on position fifth last year.
Other destinations which were a part of the top 10 in no particular order were Darjeeling, Ooty, Rishikesh, Udaipur, Andaman, Dharamshala, Leh and Jaisalmer.
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