Indians are taking lavish vacations, spending more on five-star hotels and booking business-class seats as the country emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic that restricted travel for two years, the country’s second-biggest online travel agency said.
“People are living their lives and splurging on travel,” EaseMyTrip cofounder Prashant Pitti said yesterday. “It’s a shift which is happening for good, for long-term.”
An increasing number of Indians are taking to the skies as travel curbs ease and the country opens up international travel, with pent-up demand driving travel needs for millions stuck at home.
Photo: EPA-EFE
India was the world’s fastest-growing major aviation market before the pandemic, and expects local traffic to exceed pre-2020 levels of 415,000 daily fliers within a year. Indian airlines are also adding capacity to capture the revival in demand as international flights resumed on Sunday.
Bookings for five-star hotels and business-class seats on flights have doubled compared with pre-2020 numbers, Pitti said. Indians are now planning holidays of 4.7 days on average, compared with 3.2 days before the pandemic, he said.
EaseMyTrip, which sold shares to the public last year, continues to grow profitably, Pitti said.
The company’s net income likely surpassed 9 billion rupees (US$118.2 million) for the year ending this month, jumping from 6.1 billion rupees the previous year, he said.
While airfares have jumped “quite dramatically” in the past few weeks, as carriers offset a rise in oil prices, the increase is to last beyond this year, Pitti said.
“India is looking great, in line to recover very rapidly from the onslaught which we all have been through in the last two years,” he said. “The pent-up demand won’t shorten for next couple of years.”
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