 "Travel firms, airlines make merry on long weekend")
If you have been planning a holiday, this could be one of the best times to travel.
A combination of extended weekends and steep discounts on hotels and flight deals have come together to make holidays relatively cheap.
This year has about a dozen extended weekends. Many professionals have days off this week, with Holi on Thursday, followed by Good Friday. The next extended weekend is in April during Ram Navami.
"We have had increased demand for the long Holi weekend. More people are travelling to domestic locations than to international destinations," said Ranjeet Oak, chief business officer (holidays), MakeMyTrip - an online travel company.
"While Goa continues to top the charts, many customers are also opting for destinations such as Srinagar, Katra and Jaipur. Internationally, Thailand and Dubai continue to top the charts, followed by Singapore." Popular domestic destinations are those that offer a mix of leisure, work or religious interest. Popular international locations are the ones that can be reached in three-five hours.
The spurt in demand means brisk business for hotels, airlines and travel companies. "People are now taking shorter, more frequent holidays. A holiday every quarter is not so uncommon. We see more people planning for it because of extended weekends," said Abraham Alapatt, chief innovation officer and head (marketing and service quality), Thomas Cook India.
Travel portals such as MakeMyTrip and GoIbibo are offering discounts of 55-65 per cent on hotel bookings. There are offers of cashback on hotels and flight bookings, too.
Airlines have joined in as well. Vistara is giving an offer for Holi, with fares beginning as low as Rs 999 for travel till April 30 across the airline's network.
"A hotel room or an airline seat is a perishable commodity. So, giving a discount closer to the date makes a lot of sense," said Alapatt.
Ahead of the long weekend, demand for hotel rooms in destinations that are a short drive away from Delhi and Mumbai has surged.
Hotel aggregators are also seeing an increase in business. Kavikrut, the chief growth officer at OYO Rooms, said owing to the high demand for the Holi-Good Friday weekend, the company had seen a higher proportion of advance bookings. Stayzilla, which usually sees an increase of 25 per cent in bookings during weekends, has seen a 40 per cent surge for the extended weekend.
The booking is also shifting from offline to online (mobile and apps) in a big way. "For the upcoming long weekend, our app has contributed to more than 60 per cent of bookings. Delhi, Bengaluru and Pune are the highest contributors to app bookings with cumulative share of 50 per cent," said Kavikrut.
For MakeMyTrip, half of the bookings for the Holi weekend were done on mobiles, against 37 per cent during the Christmas-New Year travel season.
