Improved Recovery in Mumbai and Delhi likely to help hotels open in September
In the last update, we shared, we were hopeful of seeing a steady recovery in bookings and were certain that the government would allow hotels in the Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, and Bengaluru to operate. However the increase in cases in Bengaluru and the number of daily cases hovering around the 1000 mark in Delhi and Mumbai have made it difficult for the hospitality industry to make a strong case to both the government and the guests at large to come back in large numbers. According to STR,B-M-NCR as they are famously called has 34% share of the total inventory present in India, making it critical for them to start welcoming guests again to drive India’s recovery forward.
As of 9th August, India’s recovery vis a vis last year has now touched 20%, which unfortunately is one of the lowest when compared to the sixteen largest tourism economies of the world. The heartening news is that it has moved from being at the absolute bottom on 2nd August to number 14. Only Italy and Australia are slower in their recovery according to bookings analysed by RateGain’s distribution platform which connects to over 250,000 hotels worldwide.
A comparison of recovery trends over a 10 week period, starting at the end of May and ending at the beginning of August show that while America has sustained recovery at around 70%, other countries are moving towards the average recovery of 40% however South Asia continues to lag due to lack of demand from international markets with the exception of Thailand and UAE which are seeing a healthy recovery of 36% and 54% respectively.
Focussing closer home we witness that India’s recovery continues with a 50% increase in bookings in the last two weeks crossing the 3000 mark for the first time since mid-March.
When looking at cities, 25% of the bookings currently are for Bengaluru and Delhi-NCR markets however we are also seeing a growing trend of recovery in destinations like Jaipur, Chandigarh, Chail, Ranikhet, Jodhpur, Udaipur, Jaisalmer more remote destinations where guests are headed for either stayactions or marriage events.
The heartening news is that with the slow yet sustained recovery of Tier-2 and remote destinations, the number of cancellations continue to remain low and stable with only 302 cancellations received last week.
India is now testing 7 lakh samples every day and has the highest rate of daily new cases for the last couple of weeks. While some might see this situation as worrying, we are certain this only means that we would be able to control the virus faster as recovery rate crosses 70%. The vaccine in Russia might have faced severe criticism however it gives hope of the much needed human intervention that everyone has been asking for since the last eight months. Let’s continue to hope for a better tomorrow.
About the Author
Fritz Müller 
Vice President
RateGain
Source:newdealeuropeblog.medium.com
