More Indians stepping out; surge in flight, hotel bookings: Report

Indians of all age groups have started stepping out of their cities, filling domestic flights to almost 100% capacity, reveals a recent survey.

The survey by RateGain Technologies, a SaaS company for travel and hospitality, cites the upcoming long wedding and travel season as the reasons for this surge in domestic travel. SaaS is a web application managed by travel technology providers.

Recent reports also stated around 80% Indians were willing to get the Covid-19 vaccine within six to twelve months of it being available, making Indians most optimistic about the vaccine, giving hope to the tourism industry in the fastest growing outbound market of the world of some revival.

While international travel continues mostly restricted to UAE, domestic bookings are majorly dominated by last-minute travel bookings, stated RateGain’s report, adding that India consistently made higher travel bookings than last year in December.

Highlighting top social media trends, RateGain stated that hotels in Maldives got ten times more engagement on their social media in the last quarter of 2020, owing to the corridor it opened with India, welcoming over 65,000 tourists.

“Indian hotels saw their highest surge in engagement during November, due to a surge experienced by hotels in Mumbai, as they received their guests during the long Diwali weekend for staycations. Goa, which was the most booked destination in December and had the most check-ins in December and January, saw three times higher engagement during November on Facebook. Hotels in India are driving more followers on Instagram by almost ten times as compared to new fans on Facebook, showing that hotels are targeting the younger generation that is joining the workforce and would be most likely to travel,” the report stated.

“In the new normal, Indian millennial traveller would play a critical role in the recovery of the region and therefore, this recovery is not encouraging for the domestic hotel industry alone but also for neighbouring Asian markets that rely on China and India to drive their tourism markets,” said Kamesh Shukla, executive vice president, RateGain.

Tourist destinations such as Goa, Shimla, and Jammu continued to be among the top ten destinations booked even two weeks after the new year. This, according to RateGain, emphasises the role of social media in playing in the recovery of the industry.