TOUR OPERATORS in Lucknow are apprehending a collective loss of an estimated Rs 10 crore in package tour sales with Bangkok getting out of the travellers’ itinerary during the just-started tourist season.
The tourist season in India is typically from October to January when most of the leisure travelers visit foreign destinations and foreign tourists start arriving in India for long holidays.
A bloodless coup in Thailand had already put package tour operators in the city on guard as they were found busy with a massive rescheduling exercise for advance travel bookings made especially for Bangkok during the beginning of September this year.
Tour operators say about 90 per cent of the outbound tourist traffic from Lucknow in the south east Asian circuit is focused on package tours which include mainly Thailand and Singapore as key destinations with about 10 per cent of the travelers opting to visit Malaysia during the tourist season.
Travel booking cancellations for Bangkok on the package tours in the south east Asian circuit is already costing tour operators an average of Rs 40,000 per family in business opportunity lost this tourist season, they informed.
{{/usCountry}}Travel booking cancellations for Bangkok on the package tours in the south east Asian circuit is already costing tour operators an average of Rs 40,000 per family in business opportunity lost this tourist season, they informed.
{{/usCountry}}“Travel bookings being made currently are either focused solely on Singapore or a combination of Malaysia and Singapore for package tours,” informed Vivek Pandey, regional head (UP & Uttaranchal ) of Delhi Express Holidays.
On an average, about 50 families (considering each family comprising
a group of a minimum four people traveling together) visit south east
Asian destinations during the peak tourist season from the entire UP region, he said.
“Travel bookings for Bangkok start in early September every year and continue for the entire period of October month. So far, we have not received a single booking for Bangkok included in package tours.
However, it is hoped that bookings for even Bangkok would pick up somewhere around the New Year when the coup story in Thailand gets a little older,” Pandey said.
He said the bookings for ‘special interest tours’ comprising student groups or corporate executives visiting Thailand for conferences and annual meets happen during March every year.
“We hope the situation in Thailand would become conducive for travelers to take their trip next year. But as of now, they are asking to delete Thailand from their list of hotspots,” he added.