Business travel is on an upswing now as strong signs of revival is noticed from all segments of travel industry in India. After a two-year long setback, large corporations to SMEs have resumed their travel and gradually touching the pre-Covid level. Airlines, hotels, cars, and other travel associates are hoping to see a staggering 2nd quarter after a major recovery in the period between April – June.
In a recent report, one of the country’s largest domestic airline Indigo has stated that the carrier has surpassed the pre-Covid level in April & May since a major chunk of Corporate have resumed their travel. Bookings on company platforms have grown almost 1.75 times in comparison to the same period of previous years. Moreover, there is a significant rise in meetings, incentive, conferences, exhibitions and resumption of SME traffic. Domestic air traffic is experiencing massive growth with every passing month in India. Also, special airfares, complimentary meals, and better flight cancellation rates have triggered a lot to keep the business travel demand in line.
A popular and large Hotel chain of India has also claimed a similar momentum in business travel in the first quarter of the year. After months of online meetings and telephonic discussions, interestingly there is a remarkable surge in corporate meetings attended mostly by young business travellers in the age group of 20-24 (43%), 25-30 years (34.5%) and 31-45 years (18.6%). According to their survey, the preferred business destinations have been Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai & Hyderabad.
While domestic business travel has taken off, international travel is also not far behind. Air tickets and hotel bookings are slowly making their way to either touch or surpass the previous periods. As rightly pointed by us in our previous article – “Comeback of Business Travel 2022” (click to read), hotels are already witnessing the comeback of Pharma, SMEs, MSMEs and consumer businesses. To add on to it, Thailand, Bali, Singapore, Dubai and Maldives continue to be appealing for leisure travel from India. US & Europe are in lot of demand too, but visas are taking slightly higher time than before. However, if this travel trend continues to sustain, then the coming financial year will definitely be exciting for business travel, no doubt!
