India comes at the bottom of recovery rates amongst top tourism markets
Written by: Rashi Saral
Amidst the tight hold of the coronavirus, the tourism industry in India suffered a terrible set back, and it falls in the category to recover the slowest. Data given by RateGain, a travel and hospitality technology provider, offers incredible technical support to hotels, online travel agencies, airlines, and car rental firms. He told that amongst the top 16 tourism markets in the world, India occupies third place in hotel bookings recovery for the week that ended in August 9, 2020, contrasting to the same period in 2019.
The RateGain data depicts booking and pricing patterns deduced from approximately 3,000 hotels in India and 2.5 lakh hotels across the globe. Hyatt group and Taj group of hotels, Mariott, Lemon Tree, and Royal Orchid.
RateGain’s chief revenue officer, ApurvaChamaria, said, “We anticipate that a complete recovery in the hospitality industry will only be possible in the next three years. This is mainly because the novel coronavirus is still spreading and in the absence of a vaccine, the traveler sentiment remains weak. Besides, the lack of conformity in travel and quarantine protocols makes it difficult for people to venture out.”
The company declared that the roadblock is expected to continue with the pandemic affecting major tourist hubs like Goa, Rajasthan, the north-east, and Karnataka.
This is quite contradictory to global recoveries in the hospitality sector as the data suggests. The United States of America witnessed a resumption of 67% in business, China has seen 66% recovery and Germany 41% rebound in the same time frame as strictness imposed in lockdown has eased. India registered about a 3% recovery in week 22 of 2020(May 25-31), rising marginally to 12% between June 29-July 5 to finally settle at 20% by August 3-9.
Trends, as observed in a plethora of post-Covid surveys, have also directed to domestic tourism, and the relatively smaller cities gaining traction among prospective travellers. India’s traditional Top 10 markets — Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata Mumbai and Pune — witnessed a decline in hotel bookings, the RateGain data suggested that the share of tier 2 and 3 towns has increased.
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