42% of recent travellers ready for a trip again: Survey

Mumbai: With movement is slowly becoming normal, the confidence in air travel has also grown as around 42 percent of recent travellers said they had a comfortable in-flight experience and are ready to travel again, according to a survey.

The survey, titled ”Travel Experience Survey 2020”, was conducted by AI-based travel app ixigo among 5,000 users who were among the early travellers, a group of flyers who have travelled during July-September, and are ready to travel again in the next three months.

As travellers return to the skies, the confidence in air travel has also gone up with 42 per cent of respondents who had flown recently in the past three months saying they are ready to travel again, according to the survey.

It further showed that the respondents are likely to take another domestic trip during the next three months (42 per cent) compared to an earlier sentiment survey done in May (16 per cent).

The survey also showed that queuing during check-in or security (64 per cent respondents were concerned about it) and in-flight social distancing (51 per cent) were among the top apprehensions of air passengers who have travelled recently.

The travellers interviewed were also concerned about eating on the plane (9 per cent), cleanliness of common areas and washrooms (24 per cent) and arranging travel from the arrival airport (22 per cent), it added.

With the current pandemic, there is an increase in anxiety among travellers with respect to planning their next trip, where 46 per cent respondents said fully refundable bookings for travel and accommodation will be the top priority for them while making bookings in the future.

The trend report also revealed that with travel re-opening, work vacations aka workcations have become the biggest travel trend of the season.

With a majority of Indian companies announcing ”work from home” till the end of the year, 30 per cent of the recent travellers interviewed said they have already been working remotely from a leisure destination of their choice.

“Working from popular leisure destinations aka ”workcations” has emerged as the biggest travel trend of the season. We have seen a 27 per cent month-on-month increase in search queries for popular destinations and getaways such as Goa, Jaipur, Shimla, Udaipur and Uttarakhand,” ixigo co-founder and CEO Aloke Bajpai observed.

He added that most of the travellers have opted for home rentals, service apartments and villas as their preferred choice of workcation accommodation followed by resorts and eco-friendly properties with distant cottages.

Due to the current uncertainty surrounding COVID-19, travellers are also booking closer to the actual trip date than usual, with less advanced planning, the survey found.

ixigo has also seen an increase in searches to travel within a week this year compared to last year