With Independence Day just around the bend, Indian travellers will fortunately have a long weekend to take a much-needed vacation. The most trending locations for this time period as well as notable flight search trends compared to last year are revealed by flight search data from KAYAK, the world’s top travel search engine.
It’s good news for Indian tourists since the average roundtrip economy flight currently costs 11,584, a 4% decrease from the previous year, for travel over the lengthy Independence Day weekend. The cost of a round-trip international travel is currently sitting at $77,431, a rise of 11% from 2022*.
“Our data shows that Indian travellers are eager to immerse themselves in new experiences in locations like Madurai, Varanasi, and Bhubaneswar,” said Tarun Tahiliani, India Country Manager at KAYAK. A lot of Indians are also considering trips abroad to Toronto, Auckland, Jeddah, and Colombo. Indian travellers are now even more drawn to some of the top popular local and foreign destinations because to significant price drops. The Independence Day long weekend is likely to be action-packed for Indian tourists, and KAYAK is all set to help them with essential ideas and tools to enable all those looking to travel for the holiday at a fantastic price!”
Domestic tourists may be choosing spiritually enlightening excursions, since unusual locations rather than well-known tourist spots are featured on the list of top trending destinations. Despite a 7% increase in travel fares from 2022 to 2024, there has been a significant 102% increase in searches for flights to Varanasi, the spiritual centre of India. Even with a 22% price rise compared to last year*, airline searches have increased by 97% in Madurai, a historically significant city.
In addition to these, the top domestic locations where flight searches increased the most from the prior year were Bhubaneswar (90%), Thiruvananthapuram (71%), and Kochi (51%).* These patterns suggest that Indians are taking advantage of the extended weekend to explore the rich and seductive cultural attractions of their nation.
According to flight searches, Colombo and Auckland have taken the top 2 rankings, with impressive increases of 5 times and 4 times, respectively, since 2022. The decrease in average airfare prices from the previous year may be to blame for the rise in tourist searches: Average airfare costs in Colombo, Sri Lanka, have dropped by 10% since 2022, while those in Auckland, New Zealand, have plummeted by 16% since last year.
Source- Travel daily