The second quarter of FY’22 (Jul-Sep 2021) has served as a pivotal moment not just for Luxury Escapes
but for the Indian travel industry. With Covid-19 caseloads reducing nationally (except for a few pockets) thanks to an aggressive vaccination drive and most of the country seeming to have achieved some semblance of herd immunity, the industry as a whole feels more confident to start planning for months to come, as opposed to the week-by-week ad-hoc strategies that have characterised our planning sessions for the last 18 months.
Luxury Escapes has witnessed a 6.5x growth in Quarterly Revenue compared to the previous quarter (Apr-Jun 2021) and a 5.7x growth in orders for the same period. The faster growth in revenue is characteristic of higher Average Order Values as a result of international borders opening up and members willing to purchase high-value ticket holidays with a longer travel horizon in mind.
While purchases in the previous quarter, and pretty much most of this calendar year has been restricted to domestic destinations, we’ve witnessed a renewal of interest in the Maldives this quarter. Dubai is yet
another destination that has come back in flavour this season thanks to the IPL cricket tournament and the Dubai Expo event. The travel aggregator started recording booking since the day Dubai opened up its borders to vaccinated Indian tourists with properties like the Raffles Dubai and W Dubai soaking up most of the interest.
Arun Ashok, Regional Head – India & Middle East, says, “It almost seemed like we’d changed course overnight. Suddenly, we’re going all guns blazing on paid digital activities and tracking higher returns on
ad-spend than we’d ever seen before. We’re parallelly testing new Ad formats on legacy platforms like Facebook while experimenting with new data partners like Adara. While most of these activities were initiated in the previous quarter, we’ll only be truly leveraging their potential towards the end of the year,
which coincides well with the festive period and the seasonal travel boom.”
