Travel Fintech Startup SanKash Reveals How India Travel During Long Weekends

SanKash, India's only travel fintech brand that facilitates online and offline travel operators to provide innovative payment plans to their customers, today revealed latest data on travel trends for long weekends. Over 95% of the bookings received by SanKash were from families with the remaining 5% for trips with friends.

The latest data also revealed primary bookings coming from metros and tier 1 and 2 cities, namely Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Nagpur, Hyderabad and Pune, Kolkata, Kochi and Jaipur. Over 40% of the bookings came from West India, followed by 31% from South, 26% from North and 4% from Eastern India. According to OYO's consumer survey, 37% travelers have a preference for mountains, 33% for beaches in India.

Travelers also start making their long weekend travel plans fairly in advance to beat the rush. Flights and trains are booked more than one month in advance, mostly due to cheaper rates and limited seats. Online Travel Aggregators (OTA) generally observe a 40-50% increase in advance air ticket bookings during long weekends. There is a substantial rise in leisure travel, with a significant number of travelers opting for group and family trips over solo vacations. Multi-generational families, millennials and young professionals, couples and honeymooners are driving demand, with destinations like Kashmir leading traveler preferences, followed by Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and the North-East.

Commenting on the travel trends by Indians, Akash Dahiya, Co-founder, SanKash said, "Long weekends have become the new way of enjoying time with families and friends. As two festivals - Raksha Bandhan and Janmashtami falling closer together, its no surprise that many people are traveling back to their families from metros, where they work or live. Families also look to spend time together to catch a breather from their daily routines and hence, we see a huge demand for family trips to destinations such as Goa, Jaipur, Manali, Ooty and Mysore. We also witnessed many advanced bookings, which indicates that people are actively planning for long weekend outings."