PUNE: Thanks to a holiday on Eid, the upcoming
long weekend from June 15-17 has pushed travel bookings to nearby destinations such as Mahabaleshwar, Goa, local spots in Maharashtra as well as south Indian locations.
Aloke Bajpai, chief executive officer of travel search engine ixigo shared, “Puneites are taking advantage of the Eid long weekend for a quick getaway. We have seen flight searches from Pune to popular places like Srinagar and Jammu go up by an average of 8%. However, over this long weekend, south Indian destinations seem to be the popular choice. We have seen an increase of 15% and 10% in flight searches to Bengaluru and Kochi, respectively. Vizag is also gaining popularity, showing a 7% increase in tourist traffic.”
Balu Ramachandran, head of air and distribution at online travel company Cleartrip, said that top leisure destinations from Pune for the upcoming weekend are Goa, Chandigarh, Nagpur, Jaipur and Srinagar. “Top non-leisure destinations from Pune are Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata and Ahmedabad. People planned their trip well in advance with 56% bookings from Pune being over 22 days before the travel dates. Theme parks are favoured in the city, while one-day resort outings and overnight camping trips too are gaining popularity,” said Ramachandran.
Travellers are heading to easy-to-reach locations for the long weekend from june 15-17