Last minute hotel bookings highest in Chennai: Study

The last minute hotel bookings by tourists is highest in Chennai, according to a study.
Online travel website cleartrip.Com also said company plans to focus on mobile phone space as it expects majority of transactions will be made from handsets.
"Right now 40 per cent of transactions made either for booking of flights or for booking for hotels happens through mobile phones. Remaining 60 per cent is through desktop computers. We expect in the next 18 months mobile transactions will go up to around 75 per cent," cleartrip.Com Chief Marketing Officer Subramanya Sharma told reporters here.
On preferences of tourists from the southern metropolis, he said: "Chennai has the highest utilisation of last minute hotel bookings at 7.8 per cent. Across the country, it is 4.2 per cent."

Puducherry, Mysore, Ooty (Udhagamandalam), Yercaud, Vellore, Tiruvannamalai, Kumbakonam are top places mostly preferred by tourists from Chennai, he said.
When it comes to international destinations booked by tourists from Chennai, Dubai and Singapore were mostly preferred. Sharma said 35 per cent of all flight bookings from the city preferred low-cost air carriers like AirAsia.
"Hotel bookings made on mobile in Chennai saw a 172 per cent year-on-year growth," he said.