Festive travel demand builds early as EaseMyTrip searches rise 40-45% month-on-month
Indian travellers are booking longer festive and wedding-season getaways, lifting hotel demand and pricing. Radisson leisure bookings are pacing 10-15% ahead of last year, while high-demand leisure room rates are up about 8-10% year-on-year.
What happened
Indian hotel and travel operators expect a stronger festive season, with higher bookings, occupancy and room rates. EaseMyTrip searches rose 40-45%
Key facts
- Hotel leisure bookings pacing 10-15% ahead of last year
- High-demand leisure hotel room rates up approximately 8-10% year-on-year
- FY2026 Q1 average room rate: ₹10,000-₹10,200
- FY2026 Q1 occupancy: 67-69%
- FY2026 Q1 RevPAR: ₹6,700-₹7,038
- EaseMyTrip search volumes up around 40-45% month-on-month
- Travel itineraries extending to 5-9 days
Why this matters
Prioritize partnerships or acquisitions that expand curated long-stay, wedding and leisure inventory, as extended itineraries and accelerating search traffic increase the strategic value of differentiated supply.
What to watch
- EaseMyTrip and peer OTA search-to-booking conversion rates, cancellation trends and package attach rates.
- Domestic airfares, hotel ADR and occupancy trends for festive and wedding-season dates.
- Radisson and other hotel-chain forward booking pace, especially leisure versus business destinations.
- Weekend versus weekday travel patterns and average itinerary length.
- Consumer discretionary indicators: credit-card travel spending, apparel/gifting sales and fuel prices.
- Weather events, rail/air disruption, visa policy changes and any airline capacity constraints.
- Increase inventory and staffing at airport, railway-station, highway and leisure-destination stores before peak booking-to-travel windows.
- Front-load festive travel assortments: luggage, travel accessories, sunscreen, personal care, portable electronics, ethnic occasionwear and premium gifting.
- Use geo-targeted offers around high-intent origin cities and leisure destinations; bundle retail rewards with hotel, OTA, airline or payment partners.
- Protect margin through travel bundles and premium convenience formats rather than broad discounting, as travellers face higher accommodation costs.
- Monitor destination-level demand and dynamically allocate stock to destinations showing rising hotel occupancy and flight-search intensity.