After a year of staying indoors, leisure travel is back once again! And we couldn’t be more thankful! Our recent consumer survey shows that approximately 57% of consumers will venture out on their next trip for leisure, compared to 43% of respondents who are likely to travel for work. 

2020 has been tough but as we approach the best time of the year, to help our guests make the most of what’s remaining of this unique year, we’ve put together a list of our 150+ most-sought leisure properties – the #EscapeRoutes catalog. While you choose to travel, be sure that we will ensure your safety! For the same, we are following ISO-certified quality management standards, equipped to sanitise your room in front of your eyes and ensure that you can check-in from anywhere with our ‘Contactless Check-in’ offering. Oh, and these properties also boast of in-house dining features, access to Wi-Fi and ofcourse, the most incredible views!

As domestic tourism thrives again, post unlocking, our top 12 leisure destinations account for 55% of demand across India. These destinations are mainly spread across beach destinations, heritage cities, and religious or spiritual ‘holy cities’ of India. Jaipur, Udaipur and Agra lead as the most sought after heritage cities across India, while Indians prefer Goa, Kochi, Vizag and Pondicherry as their top beach destinations. For pilgrimage seekers, Puri, Vrindavan, Tirupati, Shirdi and Varanasi are the highest-ranked destinations. With Christmas and New Years’ around the corner, the catalog is also designed to help holidaymakers’ decision-making process. As you read this blog, we’re witnessing the highest demand for Goa and Himachal Pradesh for 30th December 2020 and 01st January 2021. As we inch closer to 2021, we expect Jaipur, Goa and Kochi to continue reigning as India’s top leisure destinations.

Besides customer interest, post the gradual unlocks, between October 2020 and December 2020, we have also observed a 5X jump in demand for leisure destinations driven by local travel agents or the offline channel. This demand has been broadly led by Goa, Jaipur, Udaipur and hill stations located in Northern India.

Can’t decide where to holiday in the coming week? Well, let us help you. Here are our top 10 leisure properties out of 18,000 hotels for holiday-makers across India.

Sharing his thoughts on the uptake in India’s domestic leisure travel, Yatish Jain, Head of Online Revenue and Marketing, South Asia – OYO Hotels & Homes said, “Post-unlocking, our occupancy has recovered to ~45% of pre-Covid levels with our used room nights growing steadily at 40% m-o-m. We can attribute a significant portion of this recovery to leisure travel. With international travel taking a backseat and after spending months in the world’s longest lockdowns, Indians are increasingly opting for destinations that are closer to home, a drive away within 200 miles, or even exploring off-beat destinations in an attempt to beat the crowds. With work from anywhere and flexible work hours, today, families aren’t planning their holidays around school calendars, and this has further contributed to the rising demand for leisure travel. Such factors are leading to the boom of domestic leisure destinations across the nation.”

He added, “In our attempt to make the discovery of hidden gems with quality and affordable stays easier for our customers as well as support our asset partners, we’re strengthening our consumer promise to provide safe, sanitised and tech-enabled offerings to enable social distancing including ISO-certified standards of quality management, Sanitised Before Your Eyes and Contactless check-in offerings. We are confident that with our efforts and the increasing consumer optimism to travel, starting with this holiday season, leisure travel will continue to see month-on-month growth in 2021 as well.”

Overall, this holiday season in December, leisure travel is trending the most across tourist hotspots across the nation with higher road connectivity, shorter routes and distances from mainstream cities such as Goa, Himachal Pradesh (Shimla, Kasol, Manali), outskirts of Mumbai (Mahabaleshwar, Pune, Alibag, Lonavala), etc. From a business city standpoint, we are getting a lot of love across metros including Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Kolkata.

While there’s a nip in the air, beach destinations are hot this season! And to give you the ultimate beach vibes, we have the perfect anthem for you. Here’s ‘Chal Beach Chalein.’ Give it a listen. Promise you’ll be hooked on to it as much as we are.

Oh, and let’s not forget ‘Chal Pahad’ –  And a big thank you for all the love on this one. We hope you reach great heights (pun intended) in 2021.