More Indians Are Opting For Premium Holidays This Christmas Season
As the year-end holiday season approaches, bookings for holiday packages saw a double-digit year-on-year growth, with average spending on the holiday packages jumping 7% over the previous year.
Search and bookings data from MakeMyTrip highlighted that for the Dec. 16 to Dec. 31 period, Indians have shown an increased appetite for premium travel and holiday options.
The share of domestic hotel bookings priced over Rs 10,000 increased two percentage points year-on-year. For international bookings, the jump was of 6 percentage points. Solo trips to international destinations, too, saw a 34% increase this holiday season.
MakeMyTrip's Group Chief Executive Officer Rajesh Magow said, "The trend toward premiumisation is becoming increasingly pronounced, as travelers are willing to spend more for a memorable holiday."
Domestic Holiday Trends
Goa took the top spot as the most searched domestic travel destination, while Mumbai, Udaipur and Delhi followed closely. Hill stations, too, saw an increased interest from travellers, with Manali, Munnar, Lonavala and Ooty also featuring in the top searches. According to MakeMyTrip data, 40% of the top 20 most-searched domestic destinations included hill stations across North and South India.
This indicates that colder locations have become the preferred choices for the winter festive season as well, apart from being in top demand during the summer vacation period.
Meanwhile, Manali, Varanasi, Mussoorie and Udaipur were the destinations that logged double-digit percentage growth in terms of searches on the travel services platform. Most holiday packages for this festive period were booked for Andaman, Kerala, Goa, Himachal Pradesh and Kashmir, the data showed.
Business class bookings for domestic flights saw a 27% year-on-year increase in this period, it further highlighted.
On the international travel front, the United Arab Emirates was the most popular destination search, while Thailand and Singapore followed. Azerbaijan saw a 3.5 time growth in searches, whereas Malaysia saw a 100% spike in search hits. Japan, Vietnam and Turkey, too, saw double-digit growth in their searches.
Canada and Maldives were the only two destinations among the top 20 global favourites that saw a drop in searches.
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