COVID-19 impact: 71 pct Indians to avoid leisure travel post-lockdown

 The coronavirus crisis can change the way Indians travel with most of them delaying their planned holiday trips and only opting for online bookings, a new report by IntrCity RailYatri titled ‘Decoding inter-city traveler sentiments post COVID’ reveals. The report says that leisure trips are not people’s first choice anymore for domestic travel. Out of the 20000 customers consulted, 71 per cent indicated drop in planned holidays and festive travel.

From the perspective of various travel options taken into consideration, the percentage of travelers who intend to have a relaxing tour, account for 25.3%; at the same time, more than 33.41% surveyed festivals and social occasions as the only reason for their future travel.

Those who continue to travel will have social distancing and hygiene as their top-most priority. 

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The changing preferences also include online bookings with people apprehensive about visiting ticketing windows. Among the participants, 59.3% said ‘Yes’ to the online mode of booking and only 9.8% would continue to prefer offline methods of ticket booking. Remaining participants are already utilizing online booking for their travel needs.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the whole inter-city mobility industry in 2020 to come to a halt. Due to Covid-19 pandemic, consumer sentiments and preference have changed drastically, health safety becoming the priority for everyone. This survey was aimed at gauging the impact of the lockdown on the intercity mobility space and current customer sentiments around travel. Going forward there will be no single path to reinvention however, businesses will be able to succeed by prioritizing three key levers of change: Hygiene & Sanitization, Social Distancing and leveraging technology,” Manish Rathi, CEO & Co-founder said about the report.