Chennai: The recall of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 rupee notes has led to a significant 57.9 % of travellers resorting to booking through the desktop and a drastic dip in booking through offline agents.
Indians travellers used credit - debit cards over cash. About 37.4% travellers choose plastic money over cash for making bookings and during travel. Another observation was that people preferred to choose budget accommodation to luxury accommodation. Over 38 % people opted for lodging options under INR 4,000, while only 35 % chose luxury accommodation.
The advance booking streak continued with most people looking at finalising their plans 15 days to 1 month in advance. On the positive side, demonetisation did not appear to have impacted the spending capacity of travellers, with over 60 % willing to spend between Rs 10,000 to Rs 25,000, as per Yatra.com, an Online Travel Agent (OTA), recent annual winter survey showcasing the outlook of Indian travellers planning their holidays this season post demonetisation.
“Our winter survey shows that mobile bookings and the preference for budget accommodation are two areas where we are seeing a tremendous surge. Contrary to the usual preference of international destinations, we have seen a number of travellers opting for domestic destinations this winter vacation,” says Sharat Dhall, COO Yatra.com.
“With demonetisation, the trend of cashless transactions in travel will go up, and this will have significant medium to long term positives for online travel agents like us,” he added. Also, there has been a substantial drop in international travel with over 74 % respondents willing to travel to domestic destinations was noticed.
