Travel entrepreneurs optimistic about 2022

New Delhi, Jan 1 (UNI-Nirbhay Kumar) Even as Omicron cases rise rapidly, the travel industry is hopeful of bouncing back sooner than later with widening vaccination coverage and seemingly milder symptoms of the new strain.
“We see a huge pent-up demand and huge revenge travel that is going to happen. We have already achieved pre-Covid numbers as regards domestic flights,” Nishant Pitti, CEO and Co-founder of EaseMyTrip, told UNI.
The travel veterans see the latest cancellation in travel plans by tourists and corporates as a temporary blip and feel that business would soon be as usual. At the same time, they are keeping fingers crossed considering any trigger for a negative sentiment would instantly hit the sector.
After all, travel is the segment which is the first to get impacted in case of economy facing any headwind. Travel and tourism being largely a discretionary spend, people have a general tendency to hold on to it.
“The silver lining this time is that Omicron is less infectious and deaths are far and few. For us 2020 was a complete washout. In 2021 also only half of it could see some business as domestic tourism picked up. But in new year we hope things would be normal. We have to learn to live with this disease and given high level of vaccination,” said Subhash Goyal, Chairman of STIC Travel Group of Companies.
While travel entrepreneurs remain hopeful, the initial impact of Omicron on the sector is visible.
Faced with relatively low demand and cancellations, the country’s two leading carriers IndiGo and SpiceJet recently came up with flash sale of air tickets on their network.
“We have seen good number of cancellations in recent weeks,” said an airline executive wishing not to be named.
Rajiv Mehra, President of the Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO), said he expects the outbound travel from India to begin by this summer and inbound traffic to resume by September.
“We are hopeful that at least outbound travel from India should begin by this summer and hopefully by September-October, if everything remains alright, inbound traffic should also revive.
“This season is gone now. As this season is till April, I don’t expect anyone to come now. Also, I don’t see scheduled international flights going to resume so soon now,” he added.
Given that fewer international flights are operational and movement restrictions are imposed in Europe and the US in the face of rising virus infections, people from both sides have put their travel plans on hold.