New Delhi MakeMyTrip co-founder and group chief executive Rajesh Mago said that India’s leisure travel is set to grow by leaps and bounds as travel operators expand businesses started during the pandemic including foreign exchange, homestays and bus and rail bookings. wants to increase.
MakeMyTrip will continue to focus on leisure travel even as Indians return to workplaces, with business travel curtailed during the last two years due to the pandemic, he added.
“Indians will take one to two long vacations a year and at least three to four short stays mainly because companies have become more flexible with their employees, giving them the freedom to travel. People are also looking for alternative accommodation like homestays for this type of travel.”
The homestay, he said, was a completely new initiative by the company during the Covid period, and today MakeMyTrip has around 30,000 properties. “What we refer to as alternative housing within our company is very interesting in India and what many people don’t fully understand is that it is very different from the global market. In the Indian market, given that we market Better than anyone else, we decided to foray into this space and the business continues to grow.”
He added that unlike other parts of the world, the types of properties present in the alternative housing business have three or four sub-sections and not every homestay is a villa. There are also apartments; Serviced apartments in commercial cities, which can range from flats to hostels, can vary from hostels, villas, cottages, tents and flats in leisure cities.
“Several such initiatives are helping (the company’s) growth especially because of the flexibility of the consumers. People are choosing such accommodations, especially millennials etc, prefer homestays, and I don’t think there will be a drop in demand even if people are going back to offices,” he said.
He added that the industry is not only seeing a rise in demand for “domestic travel”, but also increasing demand for foreign travel. Indians are traveling to Southeast Asia, especially to places like Thailand, as places like Goa have become quite expensive. “Europe and other countries, while they have massive visa issues and despair right now, are still willing to travel,” he said. He said that he does not think that this is going to come in the way of domestic travel. “Because overall, post-Covid, the number of holidays or short stays has gone up. Now, there may be long stays internationally, but when it comes to short stays, it will be domestic because of the rising cost of international holidays.”
He said there would be one to two long vacations a year during the winter and summer seasons and at least four or five short stays, depending on the segment, within the same year for the average mid-upward mobile. Classroom for the passenger. “They’re going to look for alternative housing if that’s something their budget doesn’t allow. But basically, I think more of the total income is money that’s going to be earmarked for different types of experiences.” “