Domestic travel picks up in NE

Domestic travel, and especially sustainable travel, is slowly picking up within Assam and the Northeast, with FITs booking anything from three to nine-night packages to destinations that don’t have too many COVID restrictions.

Hazel Jain

With his finger on the pulse, Arijit Purkayastha, Chapter Chairman – North East, Association of Domestic Tour Operators of India (ADTOI) and CEO, Koyeli Tours & Travels, shares an insight on what’s happening on-ground in the Northeast region. According to him, domestic and sustainable travel is slowly picking up within Assam and the Northeast. “This is evident from the fact that at Koyeli Travels itself, we have handled a few FIT tours ranging from three nights to nine nights’ stay covering either Assam and Meghalaya or Arunachal Pradesh or Tripura in the last couple of months with tourists coming from Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and other metros,” he says.

However, Purkayastha adds that there are still COVID restrictions in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland (except Manipur and Tripura) where guests have to arrive with a COVID-negative RT-PCR report which is valid only if they were tested within 72 hours and provide the COVID-negative certificate at the airport or the railway station or at the entry point at Facilitation Centres at the respective states mentioned. He highlights an interesting trend that he has noticed. “Local tourists in Assam are opting for more localised destinations owing to travel guidelines applicable in Meghalaya. Shillong can be reached in a hop from Guwahati, where tourists have to stay mandatorily for one night and produce COVID-negative RT-PCR report. Now, local tourists from Assam are taking the services of tour operators within the state to venture the unknown. Families from Assam on different dates have taken a day-long tour to such places or with a night’s stay through Koyeli Travels within Assam,” he says, adding, “They have actually avoided crowds at popular destinations during weekends, and enjoyed the hidden gems – rural tourism with nutritious tribal meals. We are therefore hopeful that tourism will revive, albeit with a change. Families and FITs have started travelling with COVID-negative certificates from other parts of the country into this region. Northeast India is an ideal destination for repeat tourism.”