Travel agencies, portals see ticket sales surge 15-20% in May.
With leading global airlines in India offering deep discounts on international air fares for a limited period, travel agencies and portals have seen ticket sales rise by 15-20 per cent in May over April.
Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Lufthansa and British Airways are offering deep discounts. Singapore Airlines, for instance, has offered a return ticket between all major cities and Singapore for Rs 11,000 and a similar offer for Bangkok for just Rs 12,455.
Lufthansa is running a series of offers as part of its golden jubilee celebrations. A round trip from Delhi to London starts at Rs 36,100 and a round trip from Bangalore to Amsterdam will cost Rs 19,295. Its spokesperson said the number of clicks on its website and the number of bookings have increased sharply.
“This is a very good time for airlines. Elections are over, the stock market is moving up. The sentiments are working well for people. Now they want to take a break and go for a holiday,” said Bhawna Agarwal, co-founder and head of air business at Yatra.com.
“We can see a late peak happening in May. April was bad, but in May we saw airlines coming up with aggressive discounts and offers. Most of these are instant hits and people are wasting no time to grab those. We are witnessing 10 to 15 per cent rise in bookings as compared to last month and that’s a very good sign,” she added.
“The fare cuts and offers have helped in sales going up by 20 per cent in May, as compared to last month. We had better sales during the same period last year. But after the initial months of this year, we were not expecting such figures for the holiday season. The sales are definitely better than we expected. People are preferring a short trip abroad this time,” said Anup Kanuga, chairman of the western region chapter of the Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI).
Singapore Airlines’ competitive pricing has been a hit, even at a time when the company is fighting a battle with travel agents on commissions. “The response to Singapore Airlines’ ‘Exceptional Value Deals’ has been tremendous. Our booking numbers for June-September flights have jumped by about 15 per cent after only the first two days of the sales promotion. Customers who were thinking of taking vacations over the next few months have been enticed to choose Singapore, China, Australia or USA with these exceptional deals,” said C W Foo, GM, Singapore Airlines, India.
Some travel agencies say the heavy discounting is part of a strategy to combat the approaching lean season. “These offers made by airlines are aimed at the lean season traffic. The summer vacations have come to an end and the airlines have to come up with fares to attract people to travel during the lean season. There is a segment of travellers, the Double Income, No Kids (DINKS) people, that travel during this period. They take advantage of such promotions. As for bookings, it has been steady and there’s no dramatic increase. Today, most of the airlines have come out with such fares,’’ said Karan Anand, Head, Relationship and Supplier Management, Cox and Kings Travels.
Travel experts don’t see airlines increasing fares as of now. They say there is a high chance of airlines extending the validity of these running offers. A depleting load factor has driven them to come up with such aggressive offers, they say.
