Popularity of long weekends growing in India

There has been a whopping 52 per cent uptake in overall bookings compared to last year in airlines, hotel and tour package reservations, FCM Travel Solutions (Indian subsidiary of FCTG, Australia) Executive Director, Leisure Businesses Shravan Gupta said here. Popular shorthaul destinations such as Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau and Thailand have witnessed a growth of 41 per cent from last year, he added. Domestic bookings to perennial favourites such as Goa, Rajasthan, Kerala, Ladakh, Coorg and Delhi continued to increase, he opined. 

Echoing a similar view, ixigo. com CEO and co-founder Aloke Bajpai said, “Owing to the two consecutive long weekends, the onset of August brought along quite a surge in travel bookings. In comparison to the last few weekends, we saw about a 40-45 per cent increase in bookings for the Raksha Bandhan and Independence Day long weekends.” 

Not just this, an increase in travel bookings has also led to an increase in travellers opting for unconventional and upcoming forms of travel, he said. “From eco-tourism and stay-cations to experiential stays and backpacking, a host of new travel genres are now gaining popularity. Travel ‘stay-cations’ alone have at an average increased by 21 per cent compared to the last few weekends,” he added. As per Yatra’s data, budget hotels continue to be the most popular accommodation for the upcoming weekends.