Tourism Breaking News
Offering in-depth insights into the modern traveling pattern of Indians, Paytm Travel has released its ‘Travel Trends 2018’ report. The report has revealed that Indians generally love to travel on a budget, while tier II and tier III cities contributed to 60% growth in travel, and 92.9% booking were made via smartphone apps. Paytm Travel’s Travel Trend 2018 report also revealed that metro cities broke the record for all three modes of travel. Namma Bengaluru turned out to be the most travelled destination by Bus, whereas, Delhi topped the list for flights and train-based travel. Similarly, the top 5 most searched international destinations by Indians included Dubai, Bangkok, Singapore, Kathmandu, and Bali.
The report indicates flight and bus travels are the cheapest for Tuesdays and are most expensive for Sundays. The report also claims that flight tickets must ideally be booked 28 days in advance to save extra bucks by avoiding last-minute surges. In India, bus travellers opt for last-minute bookings due to the availability of multiple options and tickets. Flight travellers generally book their tickets 13 days in advance. Train travellers, on the other hand, book their tickets more than 1 month in advance.
Abhishek Rajan, Head of Travel Marketplace, Paytm Travel said, “We are driven by the vision of providing the best customer experience to all inbound and outbound travellers in India. This cannot happen without having the complete visibility of all macroscopic and microscopic trends taking place within the industry. So, the aim of conducting this research is to gain visibility of all such developments and help our customers take informed decisions to make the most out of their bookings.”
Top visited routes having low fares had an average ticket size of less than Rs 2,000 for flights, Rs 150 for buses, and Rs 100 for trains in 2018. Top 3 pocket-friendly routes travelled by train (under Rs 100) included ‘Chandigarh to Ludhiana Jn’, ‘Kherli to Jaipur’, and ‘Pune Jn to Dharmanagar’. The same for buses (under Rs 150) were ‘Surendranagar to Ahmedabad’, ‘Botad to Ahmedabad’, and ‘Hindaun City to Jaipur’. Top air routes under Rs 2,000 were ‘Chennai to Cuddapah’, ‘Lucknow to Allahabad’, and ‘Bikaner to Jaipur’.
