Leisure travellers give Southeast Asia a skip, enquiries dip 37%

NEW DELHI: Leisure travellers planning their summer holidays are looking for alternatives to Southeast Asian destinations because of Covid-19 outbreak. They’re looking at Europe, Sri Lanka, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bhutan besides domestic destinations such as the Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Goa, travel sites said. Italy too isn’t on the list because of Covid-19 outbreak there.

Enquiries for Southeast Asian destinations are down by about 37% while fares to them have dropped 15-20%, according to the portals. Indian carriers have also started reducing capacity to these destinations due to the decline in travel.

“Leisure travellers are now leaning towards domestic travel over some of the popular Southeast Asian destinations this summer,” said Aloke Bajpai, cofounder of hotel and travel booking aggregator Ixigo. “For international travel, we have seen a 20-25% increase in search queries to travel to Amsterdam, London, Zurich, Prague and Budapest from Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad for the coming months.” There is a surge in booking enquires to destinations such as Sri Lanka, the UAE and Bhutan for summer travel, he said.

Sabina Chopra, cofounder and COO, corporate travel and head of industry relations at Yatra.com, said, “There is a hike in enquires to domestic destinations such as Andaman & Nicobar, Goa, Ujjain, Northeast cities among others.”

Countries like Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia and Japan among others used to be favourites among holiday goers but Covid-19 has spread across the region. That has prompted India to issue travel advisories on these countries.

“Travellers are wary of making fresh bookings to SE Asian countries and airfares to these destinations have dropped 20-30%,” said Chopra. “Enquiries have dropped by 37%.”