Demand for banquet halls jumps 68% on booming wedding festivities

2 min read . Updated: 16 Nov 2022, 01:24 PM IST Varuni Khosla

India will reportedly see 32 lakh weddings over the next 30 days (Stock image)

For wedding jewellers, Mumbai topped the demand across the country followed by Delhi and Hyderabad.

After two years of low-key celebrations due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2022 wedding season is turning out to be big and bold. There has been a surge in demand for wedding services this year, with searches for banquet halls up 68%, caterers 57%, and jewellers rising 44%, according to a report by Reliance Retail-owned Justdial.

Its ‘Consumer Insights’ said overall demand on the Justdial platform for wedding services, comprising banquet halls, caterers, decorators, DJs, event organisers, wedding jewellers, tailors, mehendi artists, pandits, photographers, matrimonial bureaus, and wedding bands, saw a 30% jump across India’s 1,000 towns and cities.

This demand was primarily accentuated by tier-two cities that saw a 48% rise in demand, and in tier-one cities it was 22%. Prasun Kumar, the chief marketing officer of the company, said, “We are witnessing a surge in demand during this wedding season as India reportedly will see 32 lakh weddings in a period of next 30 days. The last two years have been difficult for wedding services due to restrictions on marriages due to the pandemic.“

Prasun Kumar said weddings have been a big driver for India’s gig economy, and it was encouraging to witness fast-rising demand in tier-II cities. “Demand for wedding services in tier-II cities is now two times more vis-à-vis tier-I cities. "

Among wedding services, jewellers, banquet halls, decorators, photographers, and caterers, were the top five segments that saw maximum demand and contributed to almost 60% of the searches related to wedding services on the platform. For wedding jewellers, Mumbai topped the demand across the country followed by Delhi and Hyderabad. Searches in tier-I cities rose by 29%, while tier-II cities witnessed a jump of 44%. Among tier-II cities, Jaipur led the demand race followed by Surat, Rajkot, Chandigarh, and Coimbatore.

On a year-on-year basis, demand for banquet halls rose the highest across all wedding services with a 68% rise in searches in India. Among tier-II cities this demand rose by 83%, and in tier-I cities by 46%. Mumbai topped the searches for banquet halls and contributed to almost 27% of the demand in tier-I cities followed by Delhi and Chennai in the second and third place respectively. Coimbatore, Surat, Nagpur, Lucknow, and Patna were the top-5 tier-II cities that saw maximum demand for banquet halls.

Searches for decorators jumped by 31% with Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru driving maximum demand among tier-I cities. The demand in Tier-II cities was up by 43% with cities like Chandigarh, Indore, Jaipur, Lucknow, and Surat driving maximum traction.

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Demand for wedding photographers rose by 23% in the country with searches in tier-II cities being 2.3X of that in tier-I cities. Mumbai and Delhi contributed to almost 50% of the demand generated by tier-I cities. Chandigarh, Lucknow, Patna, Rajkot, and Coimbatore were the top-5 tier-II cities with maximum demand for wedding photographers. Searches for caterers went up by 31% with tier-II cities outstripping tier-I cities in terms of demand.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Varuni Khosla

Varuni Khosla is a journalist with close to 14 years of experience in writing business news stories for mainstream newspaper companies like Mint and The Economic Times. She reports and writes on luxury and lifestyle brands, hospitality and tourism news, the business of sports, the business of advertising and marketing and alcohol brands.