| Traffic to international destinations between August 12-15 is also set to go up. This time, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Hong Kong have emerged as the preferred holiday destinations. |
| Within the country, people are making a beeline for places like Goa, Kerala, Shimla, Manali, Mussourie, Nainital, Jaipur and Agra. |
| Hotels in these domestic locations are full. The Oberoi Group's hotels in Shimla "" The Oberoi Cecil and Wildflower Hall "" are booked to capacity. |
| The group's spokesperson said guests were also finding it difficult to secure reservations at the Oberoi leisure hotels in Rajasthan "" The Oberoi Udaivilas in Udaipur and The Oberoi Rajvilas in Jaipur. |
| A Leela Hotels spokesperson said the hotel in Goa was completely booked from August 12-15. Even though the hotel provides a 30 per cent discount if the booking is made 21 days in advance, the spokesperson said most of the bookings were not made in the stipulated time frame and have thus gone on full rates. |
| Rajat Sawhney, vice-president, Association of Domestic Tour Operators in India, said hotels in popular destinations had reverted to peak season rates. |
| He added that hotels were taking full advantage of this busy weekend rush and were providing rooms only to those who were traveling on packages. |
| This way, hotels could maximise their revenues by ensuring that their customers also dine with them, Sawhney said. |
| "Instead of us grabbing potential customers' attention, it is they who are actively searching out destinations, hotels and packages," said Sunil Gupta, chief operating officer, SOTC. |
| He added that compared to other weekends, SOTC's business had picked up almost eight times during August 12-16 this year. |
| "We have received close to 1,000 bookings for this weekend and it is definitely higher than what we otherwise receive for long weekends. There has been a rise of over 40 per cent than in other weekends," Karan Anand, director, Cox&Kings, said. |
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