“We expect further growth during the upcoming holiday season. Moreover, our business travel is also seeing significant growth with corporations opening up. There is high confidence in travel.”
— Aditya Gupta, Senior Vice-President, Hotels and Holidays at Yatra.com
As visas for Europe and US prove time-consuming and cumbersome, Indians have opted for domestic flights, train and hotel bookings. Aditya Gupta, Senior Vice-President, Hotels and Holidays at Yatra.com, was quoted saying that a “renewed” sense of travel optimism had emerged and the company was seeing growth across segments including flights, hotels, buses and railways. “We expect further growth during the upcoming holiday season. Moreover, our business travel is also seeing significant growth with corporations opening up. There is high confidence in travel,” he added.
Booking.com too said that if current trends continue, the company could see a record summer travel season. It hit a record in the first quarter as globally customers booked USD 27 billion in gross bookings, the highest quarterly amount ever (the previous record was USD 25 billion in quarter one of 2019). April 2022 marked the first month that global room nights exceeded 2019 levels.
“May had seen a growth in demand for both, hotels and homestays across the country. On the domestic front, travellers were seen vacationing in Goa, Mysore, Rishikesh and Manali, while on the international travel front, Dubai, Phuket, Bangkok and the Maldives were the perennial favourites.”
— Vipul Prakash, COO at MakeMyTrip
Ritu Mehrotra, Commercial Director-APAC at Booking.com said that with travel restrictions being lifted, the company saw a surge in summer booking trends, in India as well as globally. There were positive signs of people wanting to get back to travel with travellers making up for trips they did not manage to take for the last two years. In addition to New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, and Kolkata that continue to be some of the most booked destinations on Booking.com, leisure destinations like Manali, Rishikesh, Darjeeling, Ooty, Mysore, Kochi and Goa were also popular amongst Indian travellers looking for summer getaways.
Aloke Bajpai, Group CEO and Cofounder of Ixigo said something similar. Two years of pent-up demand for summer travel had spurred an increase in summer trips. His company had witnessed a considerable rise in travel queries for all modes — air, train and bus — in May this year as compared to April. Some popular destinations booked for summer travel via flights in May were Andaman & Nicobar, Goa, Srinagar and Madurai.
Hotels too had seen a rise in guests. Zubin Saxena, Managing Director and VP, Operations, South Asia at the Radisson Hotel Group, said the company had seen a strong summer demand in India in May, with occupancies trending upwards of 70 per cent across the chain. There was a strong resurgence with MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) and MSME bookings in Tier-1 and Tier-2 cities like Bengaluru, Pune, Mumbai, Goa and
Chennai. With school vacations starting, there has been an increase in travel to leisure destinations like Mussoorie, Dharamshala, Lonavala, and Vishakhapatnam.
Vipul Prakash, COO at MakeMyTrip, said May had seen a growth in demand for both, hotels and homestays across the country. On the domestic front, travellers were seen vacationing in Goa, Mysore, Rishikesh and Manali, while on the international travel front, Dubai, Phuket, Bangkok and the Maldives were the perennial favourites.
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