Small towns in India like Hathras (Uttar Pradesh), Sasaram (Bihar), Karaikudi (Tamil Nadu), and Tenali (Andhra Pradesh) saw the highest growth in room bookings this year compared with 2021, according to hospitality and travel-tech firm Oyo.
Further, Jaipur, Goa, Kochi, Varanasi, and Visakhapatnam were the most popular leisure destinations in 2022, while Varanasi followed by Tirupati, Puri, Amritsar and Haridwar were the most-booked pilgrim spots in the year. Overall, Hyderabad, Delhi, Bengaluru, Kolkata and Chennai were the most-booked cities in India, majorly on the back of increasing business-related travels.
“Globally, leisure destinations are leading the travel recovery curve, while in India we’re seeing business travel also significantly contribute to the sector,” said Shreerang Godbole, global chief service officer, Oyo. “2022 has been a year full of fervour. Travel has bounced back with a sharp recovery curve. During the past year, we faced challenges and learnt to overcome them by going back to the drawing board,” he added.
Oyo also said that Agra, Varanasi, Lucknow and Noida powered Uttar Pradesh to be the most-visited state in 2022. June 4, 2022, was the most booked day in the year and the Oyo app was downloaded the most on Saturday, June 11, 2022, the company said.
Over eight million bookings were made last minute, Oyo’s ‘super quick bookings’ data showed.
This year, non-metro cities also increased their spends while shopping online. They accounted for about 55-60% of total festive sales between September and October, which grew 25% year-on-year, in terms of gross merchandise value (GMV) to touch `76,000 crore this year, analysts at Redseer had earlier said.