While the peak holiday season failed to bring in much business to the hotel industry, the online travel booking space has done reasonably well.
Noel Swain executive vice president, supplier relations cleartrip.com said, "Hotel bookings during October was up 40 per cent for us, while domestic air-travel bookings were up 10 per cent and international air-travel bookings up by as much as 70 per cent over last year." Cleartrip's overall bookings were up 25-30 per cent on a year-on-year basis.
In comparison, the pre-Diwali occupancy rates in hotels are around 50 per cent this year compared to 55-60 per cent in the year before, according to the Federation of Hotels and Restaurants Association of India.
"While the overall market is down, the online
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