Coronavirus: Indian travel industry in crisis

The Indian travel industry is in for a major crisis as travellers are cancelling their bookings with the number of coronavirus cases growing across the globe.

The impact is now being witnessed in the domestic travel sector as well. Madhav Oza, Director, Blue Star Air Travel Services told ANI that within a span of three months, his firm witnessed significant reduction not only in the bookings of international flights but also domestic.

"We began seeing the negative impact of coronavirus in the last week of January when customers started cancelling flight bookings for China. In February, we saw about 35 per cent fall in international bookings compared to February 2019," he said while speaking to ANI in Mumbai.

"In the first week of March, we witnessed a 50 per cent reduction in international flight bookings and a drop in domestic flight bookings as well. In the second week of March, we saw a reduction of 75 per cent in international flight bookings," he added.

Notably, the number of coronavirus cases in the country has risen to 93, informed the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare today.

So far, two deaths due to the COVID-19 have been reported in the country.

In the wake of spurt in cases of the COVID-19 across the country, the Central Government on Saturday decided to treat the deadly virus as a "notified disaster".

The coronavirus, which originated in China's Wuhan city in December last year, has so far spread to more than 100 countries, infecting over 1,30,000 people.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared coronavirus a pandemic.