Popular tourist hubs Dubai and Thailand stood at number one and two positions, respectively, due to their short flying time from India, followed by Singapore, a report by MakeMyTrip said.
According to a report by travel major Thomas Cook India, Dubai and Thailand were on the top of the chart of favourite international long weekend getaways.
The MakeMyTrip report observed that this being a shorter break compared to Christmas and new year, spends on domestic travel are 44 per cent lower while international spends stand at 67 per cent less.
The report was based on actual booking made on the MakeMyTrip website for the weekend with Holi and Good Friday.
On the domestic front, Goa, Delhi, Mumbai are cities where Indian travellers are mostly heading to, it said.
Compared to 2015 year-end vacations, Holi weekend bookings seen to be more impromptu, the survey showed.
About 68 per cent of customers have booked the travel within two months of travel date compared to 51 per cent travellers for the Christmas-New Year travel, it added.
“We are witnessing an increased demand for the upcoming long weekend. More people are travelling to domestic spots as compared to international locations. Interestingly, we are seeing the Holi weekend bookings to be more spontaneous as compared to 2015 year-end vacations,” MakeMyTrip chief business officer (holidays) Ranjeet Oak said.
He said that while Goa continues to top the domestic chart, many customers are also opting for destinations like Srinagar, Jaipur and Katra.
According to trends observed by Thomas Cook India based on actual booking made with it, while it is a regular practice to plan getaways to adjoining cities, recently it is seen that travellers are planning trips well in advance to multiple or short-haul foreign destinations by clubbing the long weekend with a couple of days leave.
There is a significant increase of over 64 per cent in travellers booking holidays 3-5 months in advance and for a 5-6 day extended weekend, to various domestic and international destinations, the Thomas Cook India report said.
High uptake (over 73 per cent) was primarily from youth, working couples, and dual income-no kids (DINKs) categories in the age bracket of 25-38.
The key source markets are Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune and Ahmedabad.
Last minute bookers’ trend continued as Thomas Cook observed a spurt of over 20 per cent in requests received over the last one week for visa-on-arrival/e-visa locations.
“The extended weekend phenomenon is clearly powering the India travel growth story. We already have witnessed a surge in requests for 5-6 nights packages to short-haul outbound or domestic destinations.”
“This year the increased planning window has enabled savvy Indian customers maximise on special offers and discounts and early bird travel options,” Thomas Cook (India) president and COO (leisure travel (outbound, MICE, domestic and sports holidays) Rajeev Kale said.
The survey also found that international destinations seemed to have a slight edge with 56 per cent of the overall booking pie.
Given easy access of around 3-5 hours of flying time, the preferred global destinations included Dubai, Thailand, Abu Dhabi, Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Bali, Hong Kong-Macau, Mauritius and Maldives, while the Indian favourites were Goa, Kerala and Andamans, it said.
