Airlines, hotels see spike in bookings for I-Day weekend

MUMBAI: The trend of going on short holidays instead of long ones has been steadily rising with each passing year. The rush of bookings for the next weekend, which dovetails a public and a bank holiday, has underlined its growing popularity.
Independence Day falls on Friday and the Parsi New Year is on Monday that gives the people from Maharashtra a long weekend.Jay Bhatia, chairman tourism council, Travel Agents Association of India, said: “It’s an annual phenomenon. Since the six to seven years we have seen a rise in bookings for holidays during such long weekends”. Bhatia says that foreign destinations such as Colombo, Bangkok, Dubai are popular and the new trend is that people are willing to budget the same amount to travel to domestic destinations like Jaipur, Srinagar. A three-day weekend would cost Rs 1 lakh-1.25 lakh for a family of three or four, including airfares, meals in a four or five star accommodation, he adds.
“We are already witnessing increased bookings for destinations close to Delhi-NCR. We expect this to go up significantly as the weekend draws closer. 21% of the long-weekend bookings are for Jaipur, followed by Manali (19%), Shimla (17%), Nainital (13%), Amritsar (11%), Agra & Corbett (7% each),” said Mohit Gupa, chief business officer-holidays, makemytrip.
Neelu Singh, COO, Ezeego1.com said: “We have witnessed a good response to the 15 August weekend and destinations in and around metro cities such as Lonavala and Mahabaleshwar from Mumbai; Jaipur and Agra from Delhi have seen huge traction.”