How Gen Z is driving festival travel trend: Hotel bookings up 135% for Diwali—Bangalore, Jaipur, Taipei, Cebu see growth
Gen Z is now shaping festival bookings, with flight bookings by 15–24-year-olds up 60% ahead of Diwali, and bus bookings rising 80%, data from Cleartrip PeekABoo travel trends tracker showed.
Hotels have seen big gains this festive season across budget and luxury segments, the tracker added, it showed leisure stays jumped 135% for Diwali. Indians are preferring destinations off the beaten path, with Taipei, Cebu and Dublin taking the lead among international stops, while tier 2 and 3 markets benefitting from the boom domestically.
Travel and hotel demand is decentralising rapidly across the country as Indians are officially swapping traditional metro holidays for offbeat getaways and regional hubs, Cleartrip said in its release.
— According to the statement, leisure hotel bookings have risen 135% for Diwali so far and 66% for Navratri.
— Traditional tourist destination Udaipur saw hotel bookings more than quadruple at 316% for Diwali so far, while bookings in major tech and heritage hubs — Bangalore and Jaipur have nearly tripled with increases of 189% and 174%, respectively.
— Flight bookings to Agatti grew 130%, Gaya 98% and Dimapur 80%.
— Other domestic destinations recording flight growth include Udaipur (59%), Dibrugarh (37%), Gorakhpur (34%), Jabalpur (29%), Imphal (24%) and Dehradun (9%).
— It added that bookings among travellers aged 15–24 increased 60%, compared with 6% among those aged 25–34.
— Simultaneously, women’s share of bookings grew 44% over the same period.
According to the report, the holiday boom is evident across every hotel category.
— Budget stays are leading with a massive 201% jump in bookings, closely followed by luxury properties at 162%, mid-range accommodations at 148%, and premium hotels at 114%. This shows that travel demand is strong across all income segments this festive season.
— Bus travel remains primarily driven by traditional festive migration as people head back to their hometowns. Bookings grew 80% for Delhi, 76% for Pune, 68% for Nagpur, 63% for Chennai and 57% for Mumbai.
— International flight bookings are growing across less conventional destinations. Taipei leads with 146% growth, followed by Cebu at 117%, Dublin at 110%, Phu Quoc at 106%, and Osaka recorded 74% growth.
There is a clear distribution of travel spending away from traditional hubs and hotel tiers. For many Indians, travel is becoming an increasingly important part of celebrating the festive season, it added.
Jocelyn Fernandes is a journalist and editor with nearly 13 years of experience covering the business, corporate, economy and markets beats in news.<br> As chief content producer for around three years at Livemint (Hindustan Times), Jocelyn publishes breaking stories, explainers, features and live blogs on a range of business and economy topics, including the Budget, corporate developments, stock markets, income tax, money and personal finance, cryptocurrency, government policy, impact of US tariffs, international developments and more.<br> Jocelyn's writing philosophy is focused on delivering news in an accurate and accessible format for readers. She thus focuses her news coverage on explainers and FAQs in order to breakdown business, corporate, economic, and policy topics that are of importance to everyday readers.<br> She holds a Bachelors in Mass Media (BMM) and Post Graduate Diploma (PGD) in Journalism and Communication and has previously written for online business and markets news site Moneycontrol (Network18), Business-to-business (B2B) trade publications — the industry magazines Power Today and Solar Today (ASAPP Media), and the national news agency United News of India (UNI).<br> Outside of work, Jocelyn keeps up-to-date with local and international news, enjoys reading fiction books, novels and short stories, and enjoys movies, travelling and art. <br> She can be found on X and LinkedIn, and reached by email: <a href="jocelyn.fernandes@htdigital.in">jocelyn.fernandes@htdigital.in</a> <br> X/ Twitter handle: <a href="https://x.com/scribeJocelyn">@scribeJocelyn</a> <br> LinkedIn: <a href="https://in.linkedin.com/in/jocelyn-fernandes-journalist">LinkedIn</a>
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