I-Day weekend boosts short-break bookings: Industry

With more and more Indians wanting to utilise long weekends for short breaks, there was up to 49 per cent growth in bookings during this the Independence Day week, the industry said.

While overall air bookings increased over 30 per cent from last year, hotel bookings saw a 50 per cent spike during the week with demand growing for high-end properties. An interesting feature was the rise in the number of women holidayers, which rose by 5 percentage points.

"With the Independence Day falling in the middle of the week this year, we saw increased bookings both for the prior weekend as well as for the weekend after August 15.

"The number of air bookings made at least 15 days in advance has increased by 49 per cent from last year. On the hotels front, we observed that 64 per cent of the bookings were made in the last four weeks and 34 per cent over the previous six weeks," Cleartrip Vice-President for accommodation and activities, Ankit Rastogi told PTI.

He said the average stay for domestic round-trip bookings increased by a day from last year.

"Over 57 per cent of the hotel bookings were for three nights or above. Interestingly, people are more inclined towards spending on luxury properties, with almost 33 per cent of the bookings for 4 and 5-star hotels against 23 per cent last year," he added.

Bookings by couples, families, and group bookings amounted to 39 per cent, 29 per cent and 19 per cent of the total booking pie for hotels, he said.

Echoing a similar view, Expedia India Marketing Head Manmeet Ahluwalia said as this Independence Day fell on Wednesday, travel enthusiasts took a couple of days off and combined it with the weekend, making it a mini vacation.

"We have seen a rise in bookings which increased by 30-35 per cent throughout the week. Delhiites preferred going to Shimla, Kathmandu and Goa, while Mumbaiites flew to Goa, Jaigarh, Matheran and Pune. We also saw rise in international bookings for destinations like Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia and Dubai this week," he added.

Paytm Vice-President Abhishek Rajan said, "We have registered a significant surge in bus bookings to these destinations compared to last month. There has been a 50 per cent month-on-month growth in bus passengers, while train and air passengers grew by 9 per cent and 6 per cent, respectively. This growth is higher from key tier II cities compared to tier I cities."