Revealing travel trends for Indian tourists this festive season, Kayak stated that Dubai, Bangkok and London are the most popular international cities to visit. The festive season travel period (between 1 September to 30 November) of 2022 has become one of the most eagerly awaited in recent years. After an easing of COVID travel restrictions, tourism activity is picking up again, as travellers desire for new destinations and new experiences increases once again.

“There are great deals to be grabbed this festive season, try using flexible search options and filters on KAYAK to identify the most affordable dates, and set price alerts for your preferred destinations,” said Tarun Tahiliani, India Country Manager, KAYAK. This is suggested by search data from KAYAK.co.in, the travel search engine, which has analysed flight searches for the 2022 festive season travel period.

The data shows fight searches from airports in India have increased by about 118% compared to pre-pandemic levels. International flight searches have increased by about 143% and domestic flight searches have increased by about 91%*. Indian travellers do not appear to be deterred by higher flight prices either, which compared to 2019 have increased by about 38% for international flights and by about 39% for domestic flights*.

The average cost of a return economy domestic flight during the festive period is about INR 8,585, (USD 107.41) and about INR 56,332 (USD 704.70) for a return international economy flight. “The stars are aligned for Indians to take that much-awaited trip as restrictions worldwide are eased or removed entirely, just in time for the country’s festive period to set in.

It appears that Indian travellers are making up for lost time and are more willing to travel than before the pandemic, according to the number of searches carried out on KAYAK.co.in. In addition to flight interest surpassing pre-pandemic levels, we have also seen searches for hotels surpass that of 2019.