Chennai: Anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests have seen over 50 per cent drop in train ticket bookings, especially in metro cities, in the past few days. Tourist bookings have also been affected.
Travel in general and train travel in particular has been affected by the protests against Citizenship Amendment Act. Online train ticket discovery and booking engine Confirmtkt has witnessed close to 60 per cent decline in travel bookings since the protests started in different cities. Bookings in the last few days have fallen to 28 lakh from 68 lakh in the year-ago period. The decline is clearly evident in metro cities and some of the other cities that saw massive protests.
“Many have postponed their travel plans due to the protests as well as the uncertainties. Further, internet connections got disrupted in some of the days, thus hindering train bookings. During the days of intense protests, some of the trains also had got cancelled. All these led to drop in train bookings,” said Sripad Vaidya, co-founder and COO, Confirmtkt.
The protests have affected the tour bookings as well. "Travellers are postponing their current plans due to safety concerns. We have seen a 20-23 per cent month-on-month fall in bookings in the affected cities in December,” Aloke Bajpai, co-founder & CEO, Ixigo.
New Delhi saw the highest decline of 37.44 per cent, followed by Dibrugarh with 23 per cent. Bengaluru recorded 11.45 per cent decline in travel bookings. Guwahati and Kolkata too experienced a slump in travel. Many travellers also had cancelled their bookings, anticipating tough conditions during the protests.
Travel operators expect protests to affect in-bound arrivals also. “Travel advisories issued might also impact foreign tourist arrival numbers for year-end travel," said Bajpai. The US, UK, France and Israel had issued travel advisories against ongoing protests.
