Extended weekend fuels holiday fervour

Some travel operators have reported a whopping 25% year-on-year surge in demand, and rates at five-star hotels have shot through the roof. Most luxury resorts and five-star properties are already sold out.

A two-night stay at the Oberoi Amarvilas this weekend in Agra will cost two holidayers upwards of ₹1.25 lakh. This price doesn’t include breakfast. Similarly, a stay at Taj Fort Aguada in Goa will rack up a bill of ₹95,000. Most other leisure resort properties of the two companies are already sold out. Luxury properties of The Leela in Jaipur and Goa are sold out, too, while two nights at Kovalam will set you back by more than ₹60,000.

Take, for instance, The Khyber Himalayan Resort & Spa in Gulmarg in Jammu & Kashmir. It has just one family suite left to book on its website, with the rest of its rooms already sold out. The price of that is a princely ₹2 lakh a night. General manager Vinit Chhabra isn’t complaining, though.

The property’s average daily rates are up 5% year-on-year, and the occupancy is the same—sold out for the first big weekend of the year, as it had been last year.

“Kashmir has been on the bucket list of a lot of people, and such types of weekends only give an impetus to travellers. On a weekend like this, we expect travellers to fly in from pretty much everywhere, including Mumbai, Bengaluru, and some driving from NCR,” he said.

Similarly, Marriott International’s popular leisure properties are expecting a sold-out situation. Monisha Dewan, vice-president, sales & distribution South Asia, Marriott International, told Mint the rates will be 15-20% higher across the board this weekend. “Long weekends are here to stay. People are looking forward to disconnecting and are looking for experiences, so our weekend packages are very popular in leisure locations. Coorg, Mahabaleshwar and places like Sohna, Aravali and Rishikesh are doing well on the weekends, and will likely be sold out. Goa will also do well. We are also pushing our city hotel weekend packages on such days to encourage in-city staycations,” she added.

Lemon Tree Hotels’s Corbett, Rishikesh and Goa resorts and hotels already expect occupancies of 75-80%. Aurika, its 5-star properties in Udaipur and Coorg, should also see a surge in occupancy over the previous weekends.

Due to their proximity to Delhi, the Manesar, Chandigarh and Dehradun properties usually witness last-minute demand, and Lemon Tree expects its hotels in these cities to also see high occupancy over the long weekend. Airfares for popular routes from metro hubs like Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kochi to Chandigarh, Srinagar, Jaipur, Dehradun, Pondicherry, Bagdogra, Goa, Port Blair, as well as to Kathmandu and Colombo have witnessed an increase of 15-30% over the same time last year, said Indiver Rastogi, president and group head of global business travel at Thomas Cook (India) and SOTC Travel. Similarly, airfares to easy- or free-visa destinations, including Pattaya, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Bali, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Hanoi, Hong Kong, Ras Al-Khaimah have increased by about 10-15%. Even though costs have gone up, data indicates a brisk uptick of 25% in overall demand for this long weekend over the same period last year, Rastogi said.

The story is no different for villa rentals. SaffronStays has seen a considerable interest in premium markets like Alibaug, Pawna, Udaipur and Karjat. There is a 10% increase in the rates that these properties are charging this year along with a similarly-high occupancy.

“This trend is in line with increased spending capacities across Indian aspirational consumers. The opening up of highways and expressways like the Atal Setu along with increased rollout of Vande Bharat trains has made weekend travel even more attractive as an option,” said Devendra Parulekar, founder of SaffronStays.

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Published: 25 Jan 2024, 09:22 AM IST