Coronavirus outbreak: February hotel bookings witness sharp fall

Hotel bookings in February declined across categories in 90% of India's states and union territories following the COVID-19 outbreak, according to data shared exclusively with ET by B2B SaaS startup RateGain.

States like Delhi/NCR, Kerala, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu were the worst affected, according to the startup which provides travel solutions to leading hotels and online travel agencies.

RateGain said its data, based on information from properties located in over 109 cities and 24 states across India shows the bookings for all OTAs in India declined in the month of February across categories ranging from hill stations to ports and beaches to national parks and heritage destinations.

Overall, hotel bookings dropped by 60%, 54%, and 42% respectively in Delhi/NCR, Kerala and Maharashtra in February.

Globally, hotel chains, airlines, tour operators and OTAs are facing a washed out first quarter of the year, with multiple worldwide and local bans and travel restrictions getting enforced each day in a bid contain the growing COVID-19 outbreak.

India's biggest OTA MakeMyTrip said on Tuesday it is not levying any fee for processing cancellation or rescheduling requests for domestic as well as international flights up to April 30.

As per data shared by RateGain, cities like Delhi, Shimla, Trivandrum, Bhubaneswar showed a 30% decline in hotel bookings in February 2020 while the outlier cities which witnessed a growth were Panjim, Kolkata, Dehradun and Lucknow.

RateGain said hotel bookings in destinations like bird sanctuaries and national parks, forts and heritage places, ports and beaches and hill stations like Shimla, Siliguri and Jammu registered a decline in February.

Following the tourist visa ban which is expected to be in place till April 15, India has also banned all arrivals from the European Union, the UK and Turkey from March 18 till the end of this month.

States and union territories like Sikkim and Andaman & Nicobar banned the entry of all domestic and international tourists from Tuesday in a bid to contain the growing COVID-19 outbreak in the country.

In an announcement on Tuesday, the ministry of culture said all ASI sites, monuments and site museums will be shut till March 31 with immediate effect.

Saujanya Shrivastava, chief business officer at MakeMyTrip said the company will try and accommodate travel requests arising out of these tough times. “We continue to work closely with all our airline partners for lenient customer policies for date change, cancellations and waivers in the face of evolving travel situation. We are also seamlessly passing on waiver benefits to our customers, wherever applicable,” said Shrivastava.