Cash crunch unlikely to affect New Year revelry in Indore

There is marginal impact of demonetisation on the New Year revelry plans of the rich and upper middle class residents in Indore.

There is marginal impact of demonetisation on the New Year revelry plans of the rich and upper middle class residents in Indore.

Radisson Blu, a three-­star hotel in the city, has not had any adverse impact in terms of bookings or response to the events planned for the New Year. (HT file photo)

While the management of top city hotels say that the impact of cash crunch was nominal, booking of air tickets for foreign holiday destinations have come down to some extent, travel agents say.

“The impact of demonetisation is very minimal. Response to different New Year packages being offered by the hotel this year was only marginally less compared to last year and can pick up in the remaining two days,” Shailendra Singh, business manager at Sayaji Hotels, tells Hindustan Times.

Sayaji Club general manager Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq says that initially there was a slowdown, but at present there was no impact of demonetisation and so he did not foresee any impact on the New Year revelry.

Radisson Blu, a five star hotel in the city, has not had any adverse impact in terms of bookings or response to the events planned for the New Year, say Rahul Joshi, general manager at the hotel.

“There was no impact of demonetisation,” he says.

Hotels of MP Tourism at popular tourist spots like Mandu and Maheshwar are almost fully booked for the December 31 night , indicating that the New Year plans are on track.

MP Tourism has also reported good response for its water sports event at Hanuwantiya near Khandwa.

Indore residents, however, have cut down their travel plans to foreign holiday destinations to some extent, says Thomas Jose of city-based Jose Travels.

Dmonetisation has had some impact on the New Year holiday plans, he says.

“At this time of the year, the Far East is the most popular destination but booking of air tickets are down by 15-20% as compared to last year. Bookings to Europe have also been affected but that could be more due to cold wave there.”

Dilip Ramani, another city travel agent, says that more people have opted for domestic holidays in order to cut down on their budget.

Apart from events being organised by hotels, seven major events are happening this year at different city neighbourhoods, half the number of that organized last year.

Pub owners blame the crackdown by the administration for the fall in number of events.

Most pub owners plan to start the party early this year as the city administration has announced that parties will be asked to wind up by midnight.