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SoftBank-backed travel technology platform, OYO, has revealed that the company received over 310,000 bookings for the last festive weekend (Navratri, Durga Puja and Ashtami). This is the biggest booking for the company so far in 2022, surpassing weekend bookings for peak travel days such as Republic Day, Holi, and Valentine’s Day. In fact, this weekend also overtook overall gross bookings for New Year’s weekend, usually the highest booked weekend for the travel industry.
OYO also observed a 134 per cent jump in weekend vs weekday bookings during the festive weekend in 2022 vs 111 per cent in 2019, indicating that more travellers are stepping out during the weekends. This travel boost can be attributed to the pent up demand for travel and increased vaccination rates.
“Travel optimism is at an all-time high across the country,” said Shreerang Godbole, SVP – product and chief service officer – OYO. “As restrictions are eased and air travel bans lifted, travellers are looking forward to celebrating festivals with their loved ones, heading out on summer vacations and making the most of their long weekends. This surge during the festive weekend is a testament to the travel boom that’s ahead of us in 2022.”
OYO’s booking data between 8-10 April, 2022, reveals that leisure destinations like Srinagar, Manali, Shirdi, Prayagraj, Chandigarh, Gwalior, and Ludhiana saw the highest growth over the last weekend.
Additionally, over 200 OYO hotels witnessed 100 per cent occupancy.
Godbole said over 300,000 travellers opted to stay at OYOs across India. The firm is expecting the upcoming Good Friday/Baisakhi long weekend to be the highest ever since the pandemic in 2020. Overall, this summer is set to be the season of pre-pandemic travel recovery.
“As people are ready to travel again, we stay committed to make quality accommodations available to suit the needs of every traveller,” said Godbole.
OYO offers over 40 integrated products and solutions to patrons who operate over 157,000 hotel and home storefronts in more than 35 countries including India and those in Europe and Southeast Asia.
RateGain Travel Technologies, a global SaaS provider for travel and hospitality, recently shared insights on the state of the travel and hospitality industry, as well as the impact of travel demand in India’s two major cities Delhi and Mumbai as International travel resumed on 27 March.
According to RateGain’s Analysis, except Hong Kong, China and Russia, all other major countries that contribute to tourism are showing higher bookings as compared to January 2022 when the world had briefly dealt with the Omicron Wave. It was expected that the news of Hong Kong opening its border for nine countries will positively impact recovery in the key Asian destination for business.
RateGain’s earlier analysis had suggested that the Omicron wave only impacted travel for two weeks after which bookings started recovering – suggesting that with each subsequent wave the impact on travel continues to reduce and the time for which travel bookings decline is becoming much shorter.
RateGain analysed bookings over the last three months as well as compared bookings for the month of February to the previous year to understand if the industry is on track for recovery and a healthy 2022.
When compared to 2021, European countries of France, Italy, Spain, and Japan have shown the biggest improvement with almost 5X higher bookings as compared to the same period last year. They are followed by Germany, UK that are witnessing 110-150 per cent increase in bookings.
India, Mexico, US, UAE showed double-digit growth as well as compared to last year. It should be noted that all four countries had already recovered to 70-80 per cent of pre-pandemic levels in February of 2021 because of which the year-over-year growth seems lower.
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