The Mumbai terror strike has served a another blow to the meltdown-struck tourism industry this year. Until last year many Hyderabadis planned their Christmas and New Year celebrations in Goa, travelling to the city of sea beaches via Mumbai, but this year the numbers have plummeted, hitting hard the sector that was hoping to cash in on at least the holiday season rush.
Local tour operators, who have been battling the recession for the past three months, rue that people are wary of travelling to Mumbai in particular and of stepping out of their homes in general this festive season. They are now even witnessing cancellations of packages booked by NRIs and foreign tourists as many visit the country at this time of the year to enjoy the longish Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Year break.
“Failure of this peak season is going to be a huge loss,” laments P Ramesh, chief executive, Model Travels. He points out that the flights from Hyderabad to Mumbai, that once were booked heavily, are now almost vacant. “The number of flyers to Mumbai has dropped,” he says. In fact, the day after the terrorists struck, there were 20 per cent cancellations in the bookings to Mumbai, he says.
Some operators are now counting losses and not the number of deals they have struck. Satya Narayan S, manager of Check In Tours and Travels, calculates his firm’s daily loss at Rs 30,000. “Last year, we saw at least 15-20 daily bookings to Mumbai at the start of December. Not one booking has been made this year,” he says. Operators such as Raj Travels explain that 25 per cent of all their travellers tour Mumbai at this time of the year as Mumbai and Goa remain the hotspots for Christmas and New Year celebrations. “Since most make Mumbai their point to enter Goa, they are all the more wary of travelling to Mumbai as they still think it’s unsafe,” says M A Saleem, manager, Raj Travels. The deadly combination of terror and meltdown has cost his firm a depressing 60 per cent loss.
Tour operators say that owing to Christmas vacations, India sees an inflow of tourists from the US who then buy domestic packages within India. “Number of such tourists has come down by over 40 per cent in this week alone and shows no signs of getting any better. With no fresh bookings for January and February now, we are expecting even worse times,” says Ramesh.
Meanwhile, for other metros too people aren’t exactly keen on risking a vacation. Kerala is still the safest option which has seen some bookings this season, say operators.
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