Festive season travel witnesses significant growth: Report

There was a huge growth in holiday uptake during this Diwali season, with a surge of 30 per cent for domestic tours and 26 per cent for international destinations, data by Thomas Cook (India) Group has revealed.
Thomas Cook India's internal data has revealed a significant and growing trend of Indians preferring to travel rather than stay at home during key festivals.
In Asia, short hauls and visa-on-arrival destinations ranked on top of the list, with Thomas Cook India's Asia Group Tours seeing a surge of over 30 per cent, compared to the same period in 2016.
The most favoured destinations included Singapore, Thailand, Bali, Malaysia and Japan, it added.

Additionally, favourites like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Jordan and Egypt showed high demand this year among the international destinations.
Diwali and card parties are almost synonymous and interestingly, the company's tours to Macau with casino experiences saw a spike of 20 per cent.

Long haul destinations that featured well this festive season included Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
From a domestic perspective, there was a strong demand with destinations like Andamans, Bhutan, the Rann of Kutch-Gujarat, Rajasthan, Goa, Nepal, Coorg and Kerala's backwaters.
Most Indians clubbed festive holidays with long weekends, resulting in 'extended stays' as a traditional 5 nights overseas tour saw an extension to 8-9 nights. Accordingly, spends also rose substantially from an average Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1.2 lakhs per person for an all-inclusive tour.

Last-minute bookings were the norm this season, with a mere 15-30 day booking window- a significant shift from the traditional 2-3 months of previous years, the data revealed.
The family segment was the main driver contributing 55 per cent of the volumes followed closely by groups of friends contributing 40 per cent this season.
There was also a surge observed from millennial, who took advantage of the company's offers to book a short work-break.
"Today's travel-hungry Indian consumer is quick to leverage festivals by clubbing them with weekends to create longer holidays- an apt opportunity to indulge in family bonding or a well-deserved break to rejuvenate and recharge. Our sales teams have reported a significant surge this Diwali festive season and this is an encouraging trend," Thomas Cook (India) President and Country Head Leisure Travel and MICE Rajeev Kale said.