Layoffs? Indians splurging more on air travel & movies, dining out

Defying the global downturn trend and ongoing layoffs, Indians are now spending a lot more online on purchasing flight and movie tickets and dining out with families, a report showed on Tuesday.

The consumer spending on flight tickets soared by 83 per cent and expenses on hotel accommodations nearly doubled in value in the fiscal year 2023.

Online travel aggregators saw a massive 224 per cent increase in transaction value in the April 2022-March 2023 period, according to the report by full-stack payments and banking platform Razorpay.

The consumer spending on movies saw a whopping 173 per cent growth and the launch of the movie `Pathaan` resulted in a massive 70 per cent jump in multiplex transactions over the daily average.

The co-working spaces also witnessed a massive 245 per cent increase in transactions while the number of payments made for cab services grew seven times, as pandemic fear eased.

"FY23 has been a year of hope, resilience, and rejuvenation for India, with a sharp growth in transactions across sectors as people rekindled old-forgotten joys of life. It also showed how Indians have embraced the digital age," said Rahul Kothari, Chief Business Officer, Razorpay.

However, the biggest shift was that broadband spends dropped by almost 80 per cent, the report mentioned.

In FY23, the spending on dining out increased by 2.5 times and transaction volumes jumped by 162 per cent in comparison to last financial year.

As per transactions held on Razorpay`s offline payments platform, Ezetap, in-store payments grew 88 per cent by value and transactions more than doubled in number across most metros, the report said.