There's been a surge in the number of COVID cases owing to the high transmissibility of the Omicron variant. In a bid to understand how the rising numbers have impacted travel bookings, CNBC-TV18 spoke to Madhavan Menon, MD, Thomas Cook, and Ayyappan Rajagopal, CEO, Cleartrip.

Menon noted that they have seen more rescheduling than cancellations in the recent past. He said, “We have not seen major cancellations. We have seen some amount of rescheduling and currently, people are taking a 'wait and watch' attitude towards how this has been done, partly helped by the fact that we have a very flexible cancellation policy in place as well as a necessary protection.”

Meanwhile, Rajagopal mentioned that bookings are now at about 85 percent of the pre-COVID levels. He explained that bookings are more near-term than 2-3 months into the future.

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Rajagopal mentioned that the platform saw a huge uptick in the months of November and December. However, search trends have gone down by 15-20 percent on a month-on-month (MoM) basis.

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On metro travel, he mentioned that it hasn't taken a big hit. However, rates have been slashed in tier-II and tier-III cities to ensure more bookings. Rajagopal shared that international travel is still not back to even 50 percent of pre-COVID levels.

Watch the accompanying video for the full interview.

First Published:Jan 5, 2022 3:42 PM IST