Bangalore, 18 March, 2015 – As the Cricket World Cup launches into the quarter-finals, Wego.com, the leading travel search site in the Asia Pacific and Middle East, shares some insights into how the giant sporting event has affected travel intentions on the site from Indian travellers.
“Indians are huge cricket fans, possibly the most passionate in the world,” said Jackson Fernandez, Managing Director of Wego, India.
“Australia and New Zealand have risen in popularity as a destination with Indian travellers over the past couple of years, thanks to effective marketing drives from tourism bodies, as well as greater airline connectivity. Add to that the allure of attending the Cricket World Cup in some of the most atmospheric cricket grounds in the world, and Indian travel interest was bound to be ignited.”
Searches for Australia and New Zealand from India rose late last year between October and December, for travel between early to mid March, which was the timing of the initial Pool matches.
“The big jump in searches however, almost tripled for the final couple of weeks of the finals, from March 18 to 29,” said Fernandez. “With India at the top of Pool B, alongside New Zealand who top Pool A, Indian fans in attendance are in for some highly exciting final matches.”
“It appears that, similarly to the World Cup in Brazil, Indians searched rather close to their selected dates with the majority of searches taking place for the final period from early January until now,” Fernandez added.
The most popular selected destinations in the southern hemisphere were Melbourne, Sydney and Auckland with a search spike of 250 per cent. The majority of searches hailed from Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta and Bangalore.
“Delhi to Melbourne was by far the most searched route, followed by Delhi to Sydney, and Mumbai to Sydney,” Fernandez observed. “The highest number of searches for Auckland were from Mumbai.”
“Again as we witnessed with the FIFA World Cup in Brazil, Indians preferred four or five star accommodation over the lower starred properties, with the majority of hotel searches for both Auckland and Melbourne,” he continued.
– ENDS –
Image India v Pakistan, Adelaide, 2015 courtesy Ashwati Vipin ©
For press enquiries and personal interview requests, please contact:
Anita Duffin
Press Office, Singapore
Wego Pte Limited
[email protected]
About Wego
Wego.com is the leading travel search engine across the Asia-Pacific and Middle East and is used by millions of travellers each month to save time, pay less and travel more. The company provides powerful yet simple to use tools that help travellers research trips, compare prices for flights and hotels across multiple websites, and to book travel online. Wego shows users an unbiased and channel neutral view of travel prices, providing a choice of booking direct with a hotel or airline, or via an online travel agent or aggregator. For more information, visithttps://www.wego.com/about.