Madhya Pradesh: Travellers stepping out with caution, bookings rise to 50%

As Covid-19 cases going down, travellers have now started stepping out. However, the rush is still far from what from the pre-covid times, say travel operators. City travellers who are going out for taking a break are mostly from the young age groups, families still cautious, operators said. Same is the condition of corporate tours, still only halfway, say the operators. “We deal only in corporate tours it is seeing some improvement as it was close to nil till a few months ago has now started opening but it is hardly 50% of what it used to be,” Anil Pillai, a travel operator who deals only with corporate clients in city told TOI. Another travel agent who specialises in train ticket bookings, Rajesh Meena said, “People are mostly travelling for work or urgency or exams. From our Bhopal biggest part of travellers go to Tirupati, Shirdi or Vaishno Devi, but these type of travellers are now only 10% of the total. And this 10% also comprises mostly of youngsters, people are still cautious about travelling with families. Like one of my client booked a lot of tickets to Shirdi for his entire extended family, travel was scheduled for March, but as cases increased in January end, he got it cancelled. However, he had not taken the refund from me, instead he asked me to keep it as he will definitely go when things become normal”. Another travel agency owner, Rajesh Raghuvanshi in the city echoed the sentiments. “Normal leisure travel is hardly 20% of what it used to be in pre covid times, people are still cautious and I feel there are some financial implications of Covid-19 also. Corporate bookings are also around 40% of what it used to be. I believe it will still take time for things to normalise, though they have improved a bit in recent times”. A travel agent from city, Mahendra Meena who dealt with people going to countries like Thailand said, “There are absolutely no bookings even now. I hope as Covid-19 ends, people will move out”.