HomeHospitality NewsTourism industry sees green shoots as staycation and leisure travel pick up

Tourism industry sees green shoots as staycation and leisure travel pick up

As lockdowns across the country ease after the ebbing of the second wave of COVID-19, hotel properties see a surge in bookings. CNBC-TV18 spoke to Vishal Kamat, Director of Kamat Group and Amit Jaiswal, CFO of Hotel Royal Orchid to understand the outlook for the business in the near term.

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By CNBC-TV18 July 7, 2021, 2:06:25 PM IST (Published)

Tourism industry sees green shoots as staycation and leisure travel pick up
As lockdowns across the country ease after the ebbing of the second wave of COVID-19, hotel properties see a surge in bookings. CNBC-TV18 spoke to Vishal Kamat, Director of Kamat Group and Amit Jaiswal, CFO of Hotel Royal Orchid to understand the outlook for the business in the near term.


There are two kinds of travel - leisure and business. The former is seeing a revival.

"There is a lot of movement on the leisure front. Even in business hotels, the staycation business over the weekend has considerably improved and you find occupancies, especially in Mumbai and other metros, going up," said Vishal Kamat

The first quarter of the fiscal was a struggle for the industry with occupancy of roughly about 35 percent. The uptick has been noticeable from July.

"As of date, our occupancy is around 57 percent as against last quarter of 35 percent so we are seeing big traction," said Amit Jaiswal.

There is also the factor of people itching to get out after considerable lockdown periods at home, something being termed as "revenge tourism".

"People are dying to get out, Goa has still not opened, but the moment it opens I think there will be revenge tourism and leisure destination will do phenomenally well,” Jaiswal weighed in.

Business hotels, on the other hand, depend on the corporate business and that may take little time to pick up with work from home still quite in practice due to the third wave threat.

"I think we will be better prepared for the third wave. But as far as the business is concerned it looks like everything is opening up and we have started coming back to normalcy,” he said.

For the full management commentary, watch the video
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