Festive season brings cheers

Moving away from the convention wherein festivals were usually celebrated with family, friends at home, Indians are now increasingly opting for travel. There has been a shift in how people celebrate festivals, they are expanding their horizon and now looking celebrate this once perceived family-oriented festival with travel.

While earlier restricted with urban/metro travellers, travelling during the festival season has now has become widespread trend across tier-I and tier-II markets as well. People have increasingly started taking more than one trip in a year as was the case till some years ago.

To cater to this growing demand, travel brands are curating special festival-related packages around these festivals Durga Puja, Diwali, Pongal and Onam.

Travel brands are witnessing heavy rush of travellers for the same from cities like Goa, Delhi, Manali, Simla, Nainital and Katra. Looking at the hotel bookings from Hyderabad, Kuala Lumpur gets the top spot that people are travelling to. Goa, Pondicherry, Mysore, Vizag, Coorg and Ooty are the top domestic destinations; people are heading to during the upcoming Diwali and Christmas.

While from rest of India we showing a large percentage of group (33 per cent) and family (35 per cent) bookings for the upcoming season from Hyderabad a lot of solo (22 per cent) and couple bookings (42 per cent) have been planned.

Those who are not travelling and have decided to enjoy the festival in their own city are also exploring different options to enjoy. Cleartrip Local is seeing an upsurge in bookings for Eat Outs in Hyderabad. Here, a trend of group bookings has been observed.