Tied to your desk when half the colleagues are on leave in the last week of 2017? Or haven’t bumped into your next-door neighbour in the elevator? They are probably holidaying on the snow-capped peaks of Manali or splurging at the Dubai Shopping Festival.
These are among the destinations Indians are headed for to usher in the New Year, according to travel companies. Domestic travel jumped 15 percent this year-end, while international travel has gone up by 18 percent, Cox and Kings said. Last year, the industry had taken a hit after the note ban led to a cash crunch.
Offbeat destinations like Helsinki in Finland are also catching up. Interest in Florence in Italy’s Tuscany region spiked after Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma’s wedding there, according to MakeMyTrip.
Goa, Kochi, Kolkata, Port Blair and Jaipur are among the top domestic destinations for weddings, a survey by Paytm found. Dubai, Colombo, Male, Krabi and Hong Kong are on the itinerary of Indians looking tied the know abroad.
Holiday-related queries went up 27 percent this winter, with most people searching for luxury, honeymoon and safari, according to Google. And mobile is increasingly becoming the preferred booking platform with 59 percent of the overall transactions being done through it, MakeMyTrip said.
Here’s the list of top global and domestic destinations Indians are travelling to for the New Year party.
Make My Trip
Domestic
- Goa
- Udaipur
- Jaisalmer
- Manali
International
- Thailand
- Singapore
- Dubai
- Malaysia
- London
Cox and Kings
Domestic
- Goa
- Kochi
- Andamans
- Manali
International
- Sydney
- Paris
- Dubai
- Singapore
Thomas Cook
- Domestic
- Andamans
- Kerala
- Gujarat
International
- Dubai/Abu Dhabi
- Singapore-Thailand
- Mauritius
- Sri Lanka