Over 40% choose “Hill Stations” over Beaches & Adventure Holidays while “Driving Distance” is chief decider during planning
Getting away from the hustle, bustle and noise of city-life, most Indians choose “Hill Stations” as their Weekend Getaway preference, revealed an insight on Weekend Travel, conducted by Cleartrip – India’s most comprehensive, no-fuss travel portal.
Over 40% travellers decided to part with their home-stress and work-woes within city limits and pack their bags for a ‘hilly retreat’, blissfully away from cell-phone networks and exhaust-polluted air.
This was followed not-so-closely by “Beach Destinations” with around 23% travellers choosing to dive into the waters and soak up some wind, while picnicking under the sun and sand.
| Theme | % Split |
| Hill Station | 40% |
| Beach | 23% |
| Heritage | 15% |
| Pilgrimage | 10% |
| Adventure | 7% |
| Urban Escape | 5% |
Another interesting trivia that Cleartrip’s Insight threw up was the deciding factor while planning Weekend Getaways. A whopping 54% consider “Driving Distance” as the chief deciding factor while selecting the destination. This is understandable so, since time-to-get-there is of essence when all travellers are looking at, is a short 2-3 day retreat.
| Deciding Factors | % Split |
| Driving Distance(Point-to-point driving time) | 54% |
| Destination theme(Beach, Adventure, Hill Station) | 29% |
| Hotel theme(Spa, Yoga, Family, Romantic, Pet Friendly) | 17% |
Interestingly, putting together Weekend Getaways is as much a pre-planned activity, as it is a spontaneous one. While approximately 35% travellers seem to be planning their weekends only 3-days prior to date of travel, an equally organized chunk of travellers seem to be planning them well in advance.
| Advance Planning Pattern | % Split |
| Within 3-days of travel | 35% |
| Within 3-6 days of travel | 21% |
| Within 7-14 days of travel | 22% |
| 15-days prior to travel | 22% |
Samyukth Sridharan, Chief Operating Officer, Cleartrip explains, “Working professionals or home makers, everyone deserves a break. Weekend Getaways therefore become the perfect ‘power-nap’ in-between hectic, stressful, work-lives. Fortunately, more and more people are waking up to the benefits of short breaks and extended weekends, only to return to work, rejuvenated and refreshed. Weekend Getaways continue to be the perfect recipe for the eternal work-life balance and Cleartrip is only happy to take the stress out of all that planning and making travel simple & joyful.”
Which is why it’s not too surprising to see that quite a few travellers have already planned their long weekend getaways for the months of July and August 2014. (Eid on Monday 28th July and Independence Day on Friday 15th August 2014).
The top destinations booked for these weekends included, quite intuitively, the King of Hill Stations – Kodaikanal – at the very top. This was closely followed by Munnar, with Ooty and Goa trailing.
The average amount agreeable for a per-night-per-head basis was pegged at Rs. 4,000/-, the insight revealed.
The ‘Cleartrip Weekend Getaway’ data is based on (hotel) bookings made from March’14 to July’14.