When it comes to Indians sick and tired of being cooped up and masked-in at home, revenge travel is certainly a prospect. From being one of the worst affected sectors following the pandemic and its ensuing lockdowns and restrictions, the travel industry is up in the air again, on a wing and a prayer.
300 per cent. That is how much domestic travel in India increased by last month, compared to the same month pre-COVID (2019). And mind you, the peak travel months in India tend to be the festive months of October-November-December and they're off to a good start if early bookings are any indication. It also helps that last week the union government removed the cap on airline capacity and ticket tariffs in domestic travel, a precautionary measure it had implemented after COVID. Expectations are that regular international service will also restart some time next month.
"This year we have seen a high demand for travel within India," noted Romil Pant, senior vice president, leisure travel, Thomas Cook India. The company is the leading integrated travel service company in the country and its study of travel trends for the past quarter (July to September) shows how Indians travelled with a vengeance.
"Through these months, Indians showed a clear preference for the hills," said Pant.
For travellers in the north, it was the cooler climes in the hills, or more specifically, Leh-Ladakh. Also popular were Kashmir, Shimla as well as the hills of Uttarakhand. While South Indians showed an inclination to try out Jaipur along with the rest of the 'golden triangle' (Agra and Delhi), a curiously trending fave with those south of the Vindhyas was travelling to Wagah Border, along with Amritsar and Chandigarh.
While leisure travel had seen a sudden spurt in bits and pieces ever since the COVID scenario seemed stable in the past nearly two years, the present solid boom has come as manna from the heavens for the beleaguered travel industry. The icing on the cake is also the fact that business travel, the segment that brings in the most moolah, also seems to have restarted. Thomas Cook's business travel figures show a 40 per cent recovery.
While COVID fatigue, improving vaccination figures and the plummeting tally of new infections has helped put travel back on track, another reason for the inordinate boom in local tourism perhaps is also the fact that most international destinations were out of bounds for Indian tourists until very recently. "That's when many realised that hey, we have not seen our own country much!" said Pant.
In fact, for quite a long time, the only popular international tourism destination Indians were allowed in was the Maldives, which explains the flurry of outbound travel towards the Indian Ocean islands—of the 10 lakh tourists the Maldives saw this summer, 2 lakh were from India according to estimates.
But that could change very soon, with many more countries opening their doors, ranging from popular destinations like France, Austria, Germany and the US. Old favourite Dubai is enticing in a big way, with the T20 World Cup, the just-opened Dubai Eye as well as the ongoing Dubai Expo promising to be big attractions for Indians.
