Shorter getaways take over festive weekend

With Diwali falling closer to the weekend, 73 per cent travellers are finding this as the perfect opportunity to escape from their monotonous city schedules to indulge in short getaways, says a survey conducted by online travel portal Yatra.com.

The portal conducted its annual survey highlighting the travel trends for this festive season on 2,700 respondents in which 67 per cent respondents said they are planning to travel during the festival season, leveraging the long weekends.

Led by airlines flash sales, the trend of booking in advance continues to be on the rise with a whopping 40 percent respondents booking at least 1-3 months in advance from their travel date.

Travellers seem to be choosing accommodation wisely, with 42 percent and 25 percent opting for 3-4 star hotels and budget hotels, respectively.

Travellers are increasingly travelling for leisure and embarking on domestic travel for shorter trips which are considerably more affordable. Only 22.7 percent respondents said that they would prefer taking an international vacation.

Another key observation derived out of the survey was about Indian travellers preferring to travel with their families during festivals, with 63 per cent falling under the category. 42 percent of the respondents said that they are looking at the festive season as a time to head out of the city or the country to explore new destinations and cultures.

Commenting on the findings from the survey, Sharat Dhall, COO (B2C), Yatra.com, said "The discerning Indian travellers are breaking away from the conventional mind-set of staying or visiting hometown during festival, especially if it's closer to a weekend. Indian travellers today are open to discovering new destinations for quick weekend getaways along with traditional sightseeing vacations.

"Factors like cheaper air fares and low tariffs for budget hotels are increasingly making budget travel an attractive option."

The survey also revealed that Facebook is the most popular social media platform amongst the travellers with 83 percent of the respondents saying they use Facebook to post vacation updates.