Ahmedabad

Udaipur and Mount Abu in neighbouring Rajashtan and the union territory of Daman are the current top-most favourite weekend holiday destinations for Gujaratis while Kumbhalgarh, Silvassa, Panchmarhi and Kolhapur are quickly catching up with them as the emerging likable ‘stress-busting’ weekend-break spots for the residents of this western state, a study conducted by a leading online tour managing firm has revealed.

Holy city of Dwarka and Vadodara, the cultural capital of Gujarat along with Saputara, diamond city Surat and Rajkot are the most preferred ‘in-state’ destinations for the people of Gujarat, the study by Cleartrip mentioned.

Elaborating on the interesting travel and hotel booking trends of Gujarati people, Chief Revenue Officer of the company, Mr Amit Taneja said the maximum 30 percent weekend holiday travelers prefer to cover a distance of 300 to 500 kilometers while the 700 to 900 km range was the second favourite with 26 percent.

‘So far as Amdavadis are concerned their overall top three favourite international destinations are Bangkok, Dubai and London. New York, Singapore and Toronto also make it to the top ten for them. Closer to home, Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore are the 3 most liked domestic destinations for them with Hyderabad, Kolkata and Goa following closely,’ He said.

‘For the advance purchase patterns of Amdavadis, we have witnessed a steady graph around last minute travel. A noteworthy highlight is that over 39 percent of the bookings from the city happen 0-7 days from the actual day of travel. They are pretty much last minute travelers,’ Mr. Taneja said.

He also said that the booking through mobile phones was being more and more dominant. ‘We are planning almost all our future things with mobile internet in mind. The desktop is quickly lagging,’ he said.

Cleartrip, the largest mobile based travel company in India has a turn over of $800 million. Currently it conducts 3 million travel and hotel bookings annually.

– DeshGujarat