As India gears up for an unprecedented travel opportunity, Indiver Rastogi, President & Group Head of Global Business Travel at Thomas Cook (India) and SOTC Travel, sheds light on the travel landscape that’s about to unfold.
Indiver Rastogi commented, “The upcoming extended weekend offers significant travel opportunity to customers across segments, and we are witnessing a 2x surge in demand vs. last year. With Eid-e-Milad falling on a Thursday and Gandhi Jayanti on a Monday; Indian travellers are maximizing on the 5-day weekend and exploring their favourite locales.
What is interesting is that airfares to domestic favouries like Srinagar, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Kochi, Port Blair, Mahabalipuram, Bagdogra and Goa from various hubs like Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad have witnessed a drop by approx. 5 to 20% compared to same period last year. Similarly, airfares for India’s metro routes have dropped by 10-20% over last year.
India’s migrant working population continues to leverage on such extended weekends/public holidays to return home and this is leading to increase in flight loads and airfares from metros to mini metros and Regional India’s tier 2 & 3 cities.
Closer to home destinations including Singapore, Bali, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Male, Siem Reap, Hanoi are witnessing 10-12% increase in airfares, while Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur at 15-18%.”
