Surge in searches for picnic spots and local tourist attractions as travelers look for local options amidst the concerns of COVID

Hyderabad, December 12, 2021: With the fear of third wave of COVID looming large, travelers are being conservative and opting for local and nearby options for leisure travel and outings with frequent changes in travel laws across different states playing the bummer card during the forthcoming holiday season. Latest Just Dial Consumer Insights reveal that demand for budget hotels, picnic spots, local tourist attractions and farmhouses have been on a rise as Just Dial witnessed a 51% YOY growth in searches for all travel and tourism related searches.
This demand growth was higher in Tier-II cities at 54% ahead compared to Tier-I cities, where the rate of growth was 49%. Just Dial compared consumer trends for the Oct-Nov 2021 period vis-à-vis same period in 2020 when unlocking was taking place in a phased manner to analyse the demand trends in the domestic travel and tourism sector.
Searches for picnic spots, budget hotels and local tourist attractions soared significantly during this period across India this year. Budget hotels saw a demand growth rate of 220% followed by picnic spots (147%) and local tourist attractions (121%).
Speaking on this trend, Prasun Kumar, Chief Marketing Officer, Just Dial said, “With economy gradually bouncing back, we have been witnessing an increasing inclination among people towards leisurely outings. Local attractions, picnic spots and farmhouses along with budget hotels seem to be the levers driving the leisure segment, substituting long distance international or domestic travel. This could be a defining new trend and it is also poised to give a much-needed fillip to local and domestic businesses driving the category in the near future.”
Tier-I cities saw a 207% growth in searches for budget hotels while in Tier-II cities it was 198%. Demand for budget hotels in Mumbai dominated almost 42% of the searches that took place for Tier-I cities.  Searches for hotels in Delhi and Kolkata made it to the top-3 followed by Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, Bangalore, and Ahmedabad. “Hotels in Goa” was the most after in Tier-II cities followed by Lucknow, Coimbatore, Chandigarh, and Jaipur.
With the threat of the virus strain still keeping people apprehensive, a higher inclination and preference for are preferring local areas not far from home seem to be defining the new trend in leisure across the length and bread of the country. As a consequence, therefore, searches for picnic spots shot up by a whopping 147% across India. In this area though, in searches in Tier-I (208%) cities was significantly higher than that from Tier-II cities (167%).
Among Tier-I cities, Pune saw maximum searches for picnic spots followed by Mumbai, and Kolkata. The rest of the searches was generated from the cities of Delhi, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Bangalore, and Chennai. Nagpur, Nashik, Solapur, Goa, and Guwahati were the top-5 Tier-II cities that saw maximum demand for picnic spots.
Instead of venturing too far, people are looking for nearby local attractions and hence searches for local attractions registered a growth by 121% across India with Tier-I cities surging ahead of Tier-II in terms of growth demand. Delhi, Bangalore, and Hyderabad were the top-3 Tier-I cities with maximum demand followed by Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Kolkata, and Ahmedabad. Malappuram, Thrissur, Nashik, Coimbatore, and Belgaum were the top-5 cities with maximum demand among Tier-II cities.
With party season around the corner, searches for Farm Houses have also substantially gone up by 56%. Demand growth in Tier-II cities remained higher at 88% compared to 55% in Tier-I. Hyderabad and Mumbai were the two cities that generated around 83% of the demand from Tier-I followed by Delhi, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, Ahmedabad, and Kolkata. Among Tier-II cities, Nagpur dominated the demand for Farm Houses and it was higher than combined demand of Delhi, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, Ahmedabad, and Kolkata.
In terms of hiring cars, Delhi topped the list in terms of demand among Tier-I cities followed by Mumbai and Hyderabad as the top-3 with maximum searches followed by Pune, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata, and Ahmedabad. Among Tier-II cities, demand for car hires in Goa soared by almost 103% and it at a pan-India level it was third after Delhi and Mumbai. Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, Jaipur, and Surat made the remaining of the top-5 Tier-II cities with maximum demand for car hires.