With air fares in the domestic skies spiralling Indian's are preferring to travel abroad than fly within the country for their Christmas and New Year holidays. With air tickets at an average in the domestic sector up by 20-30%, bookings have fallen by 5-8% in the season say executives of leading online portals. The bright spot is that international travel has seen a surge in bookings.
"Compared to last two months there will be a growth in number of passengers flying in December but on an industry wide basis it will be 5-8% lower on a year-on-year basis,'' says Cleartrrip's executive vice president Noel Swain. According to him reduction in capacity and an increase in air fares are responsible for fall in domestic traffic.
Sharat Dhall, chief operating officer of Yatra.com concurs that demand for air travel within country remains sluggish. "October and November were negative for air travel. December looks flat. We are not very bullish and after last two months we were not expecting much growth in air travel,'' he said.
Another reason for the slowing domestic traffic is that foreign tourist arrivals this year too are slowing down. November saw a 3% growth in foreign arrivals compared to ten% growth in same month last year. High fares and economic slow down in Europe are cited as the reasons for slow growth. According to ministry of tourism data 6.9 lakh foreign tourists visited the country last month.
International travel, however, is looking up, Swain says. "We have seen an increase in bookings for Dubai, Bangkok and Singapore in December. One of the reasons for the same is low cost airlines adding capacity. A Mumbai- Bangkok return ticket comes around Rs 17000 which is around the same or little more than a return Delhi ticket,'' he added.
According to travel agent "Low fares are not available on the Dubai sector as flights are going full. Return tickets to Dubai are now available for upwards of Rs 30,000 which is about 50% higher than normal.''
Bird Goup's executive director Ankur Bhatia said: "The demand for domestic travel has gone down by 20 per cent on a year-on-year basis whereas international traffic has gone up by 10%. Because of over capacity on certain routes like Dubai, Thailand & Singapore, great deals are happening on these international routes."
