National Travel demand witnessed a 25% rise in forwarding bookings compared to the previous year.

Hospitality and travel companies expect demand for leisure destinations to pick up during the long Diwali weekend leading up to the year-end vacations.

RateGain, a travel technology solutions provider that processes electronic transactions for travel and hospitality businesses, saw a 15% year-on-year increase in bookings during the week of Diwali, and almost 10% more than the same period in 2019. Goa, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan.

Thomas Cook Ltd expects travel demand to triple from last year during the long weekends of Diwali, Bai Duj, and Govardhan Puja. The Indian tourism industry is seeing a surge in demand for five- to nine-day travel opportunities during the holiday season, according to the company

Rajeev Kale, president and country head, holidays, MICE (meetings, incentives, conferencing, and exhibitions), visa, Thomas Cook (India) expressed that “Diwali is an important festival and migrant working professionals travel back to their hometowns to celebrate Diwali with families”.

Leisure Hotels Group, which operates hotels in Nainital, Naukuchialtal, Bhimtal, Jim Corbett National Park, Rishikesh, Haridwar, Varanasi, and Kausani said: “It was seeing 60% occupancy over the holiday weekend.”

The research driven by Flight search data displayed that, the five most searched destinations during Diwali are New Delhi and Goa.

Vikramjit Singh, president of Lemon Tree Hotels, said resort destinations such as Goa, Alleppey, Udaipur, Coorg, and Rishikesh are expected to sell out over the holidays.