Gurugram, June 28, 2023: Very few countries can lay claim to a diverse canvas of breath-taking destinations like India. The pandemic made Indian travellers explore the country like never before, ensuring sustained growth for the sector. As per on-platform data of MakeMyTrip, Indian travellers, especially in the age group of 22-30 years and 36-45 years, demonstrate a strong Carpe Diem bent of mind to travel. These high-intent cohort groups book multiple holidays yearly, using every possible window to discover new places and engage in fresh adventures.
However, when planning the next holiday, the price of flight tickets to the chosen destination can often tip the scales towards postponement over intent. According to on-platform data, leisure segment bookers take almost twice the number of searches to book their flights compared to the business segment. This indicates that flight bookers sift through prices for multiple destinations in various combinations before finally making their final pick of leisure travel reservations. From a research standpoint, this takes time and mental bandwidth before fully firming up a trip.
MakeMyTrip’s new feature ‘Incredible India Incredible Prices’ attempts to solve the issue leisure travel bookers face by offering results based on the most economical airfare to multiple destinations within India from the city they wish to travel to for the next six months. One can filter the most economical flight according to the month of travel and theme-based travel categories such as – Adventure, Heritage, Religious, Romantic, Wildlife, Beach, Hills & Mountains, Honeymoon, etc. The feature also highlights the top things to do in each destination, thereby offering a 360-degree view to the traveller about varied destinations in just a few clicks.
Rajesh Magow, Co-Founder & Group CEO, MakeMyTrip, added – “The new feature has been developed from a user lens and attempts to fuel interest in the hidden gems of India by offering results based on price, timeline, and the theme of travel. The early results are encouraging as we have observed 2.5 times increases in searches for leisure destinations on the Incredible India funnel as compared to the regular flight funnel.”
The ‘Incredible India Incredible Prices’ feature is also catalysing a behaviour shift in the advance purchase patterns for flight bookers in the leisure category. Preliminary data shows that more than 60% of consumers exploring destinations in the Incredible India funnel on the platform book tickets at least 30 days in advance as opposed to less that 30% on the regular flight listings funnel thereby benefitting from cheaper fares.
