Cricket tourism drives tourism despite rising costs

As this is the first time post-pandemic that IPL matches are being played across India, the company has seen over 60-70 percent increase in demand for travel to match venues in both April and May (data) over last year, it said. Rajeev Kale, President & Country Manager, Holidays, MICE, Visa for Thomas Cook India Ltd.

This is not limited to cricket enthusiasts; Several companies also send employees. Our data shows high demand for IPL match venues like Lucknow, Hyderabad, Mohali, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Delhi, Guwahati, Kolkata, Mumbai, Jaipur, Dharamshala and Chennai,” he said.

The unit SOTC Travel has also seen business growth of 30-40% in travel demand compared to last year’s season. In addition, it has already started receiving inquiries about the World Cup in October.

Sports experience and travel agency DreamSetGo, backed by Dream11 parent Dream Sports, wants to bring travelers to India for the upcoming Men’s Cricket World Cup. Although it does not account for domestic travel for the tournament, the company’s founder expects about 300,000 fans around the country to travel to watch these matches and another 150,000 travelers to arrive from overseas in the coming months. It plans to serve traffic from the UK, UAE and Australia, said its founder and chief business officer Monish Shah.

There is a huge demand for a strong sports market. Fans now want to know where they want to sit, what kind of experience they will have in the stadium, and if fans will interact with the players. We are also looking at tying up with some IPL teams next year as well,” Shah said.

Santosh Kumar, head of Indian subcontinent and Indonesia at online travel agency Booking.com, said exact numbers are difficult to share, but it is seeing spikes in bookings for sporting events as more athletes, their teams and sports fans travel to these events. .

Another aggregator, Ixigo, has seen month-on-month growth in April at destinations such as Mohali, Chennai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Guwahati and Kolkata. The increase is up to 40 percent in Guwahati and 25 percent in Mohali.

We have seen a significant increase in bookings and inquiries for some of the destinations that are also IPL host cities during the month of April. Overall, flight bookings have increased by 42% in April also due to two extended long weekends per month. “Demand for family mini-vacations has grown strongly as mass bookings are on the rise this month,” said Aloke Bajpai, founder and group chief executive of Ixigo’s owner Le Travenues Technology Ltd. The company looks at data that links bookings to the number of enquiries. Its flight inquiries and bookings have increased this for March and April of the year 20% per month thanks to IPL.