14% increase in Mumbai travellers this long weekend, highest so far

Mumbaiites are set to make the most of the coming long weekend. With an increase of 14% travellers as compared to the weekend last year, portals say that travel movements for the long weekends have by far been the highest this year.

Apart from a trip to the hill stations, Mumbaiites are also opting for treks. According to portals, the school vacations along with attractive offers from airlines are the reason for more bookings.

Karan Anand, head of relationships, Cox & Kings said, “Domestic and International travel movement for the May 1 weekend is so far the highest of all weekends of 2018 with around 20% surge in demand. It is mainly because, the drop in domestic airfares due to an increase in capacity and domestic airlines are coming out with offers every week.”

Goomo said that most of the bookings are made from Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, and Hyderabad. Varun Gupta, its CEO said, “We have seen a 14% rise in the number of people travelling to Mumbai, while 35% of customers from the city have made bookings for popular getaway destinations during this period.”

Book now and pay later is trending amongst customers, especially students, as it gets easier for budget travellers to avail services and pay after few days, whenever they have the balance to pay.

Sameer Bhatia, head of marketing, ePayLater, said, “Mumbaiites have booked tickets to close-by destinations like Goa, Kerala, Manali, Dehradun and Raipur amongst others. By choosing to pay later, a frequent traveller avoids the hassle of entering lengthy and sensitive bank details for every single transaction.”

Rakshit Desai, managing director, FCM Travel Solutions said, “The upcoming extended four-day-long weekend has resulted in a significant uptake in domestic and international travel bookings. This long weekend has particularly been a super busy time to travel, owing to summer vacations. “

Calling the last week of April a ‘bliss’, Rajeev Kale, president and country head-leisure travel Thomas Cook said that many travel enthusiast are counting down days to the long weekend and a couple of well-earned days off work. Major booking are made from Pune, Nashik, Surat, Hyderabad, Cochin and Indore.”

SOTC said that travellers from Mumbai have shown interest in shorter getaways away from the hectic city life. “Destinations with visa-on-arrival facility are popular such as Thailand, Mauritius, Dubai, Hong Kong, Bali and Sri Lanka. Destinations such as Andaman, Ladakh, Dharamshala, Kashmir, Goa are immensely popular amongst Mumbaiites,” said Daniel D’souza, head of sales, SOTC.