Europe most favoured travel destination for Chandigarh residents
For Chandigarh residents, Europe has emerged to be among the most preferred overseas travel destination during summer vacation.
With a spike in demand, travel agents across the city have a variety of offers to Europe readily available. Most travel agents agree that there has been a 20% rise in tricity residents looking to travel to Europe and other international destinations such as Singapore and Dubai.
According to the travel agencies, 30% of Chandigarh residents travelling this summer have booked their tickets for Eastern Europe, followed by Singapore and Dubai. Direct international flights from Chandigarh are also flying full capacity.
Rajeev Kale, president and country head of leisure travel and MICE at Thomas Cook (India) Limited said that from an international perspective, the highest demand from family segment of the tricity this year has been for Europe and USA, followed by South Africa and Australia-New Zealand. “Couples and millennials are preferring Bali, Singapore, Malaysia and Dubai,” Kale said.
“In the summers, domestic travel has grown by 30% while a growth of 20 % has been observed in the outbound space,” said Karan Anand, head, relationships, Cox and Kings.
“European destinations such as UK, France, Switzerland and Germany are in maximum demand. There is also a growth in demand for cruise holidays. Double digit growth has been seen in fly-cruise packages to Singapore and Mediterranean,” Anand added.
Tailor-made travel packages and other offers of free nights, 5-10% discounts on international tours and cashback up to Rs 4,000 are also attracting the residents.
“Singapore and Hong Kong are most preferred destinations for cruises, followed by Europe,” Ezeego1 CEO and director Neelu Singh said. “In the past two years, there has been a rise in the number of travellers ready to experiment with unexplored places. More than 40% of the travellers from the north are booking holidays to exotic places.
SOTC’s Amod Thatte agrees. “There has been a growing demand for international destinations like Europe and USA, and domestic destinations like Leh, Ladakh and Bhutan from the tricity,” he said. “Other popular destinations are Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, along with short-haul destinations like Mauritius, Dubai, Thailand, Singapore, Bali, Hong Kong,” he added.
WHY EUROPE?
Cooler climes, single currency across multiple countries, relaxed border crossing are among the many reasons city residents are preferring Europe over run-on-the-mill destinations such as Thailand and Bali. Travel agents said tricity residents have started looking for niche destinations, which are more experimental and expensive as well. In domestic destinations, Nainital-Masoori-Corbett, Shimla-Manali, North Eastern destinations such as Gangtok-Pelling-Darjeeling and Ladakh are among best-sellers. Ranthambore and Bharatpur are popular among wildlife enthusiast, while Uttarakhand has emerged among the most-preferred adventure destinations.
