Thailand is out of bound because of Covid-19 and so are other countries of the region, prompting many Calcuttans whose favourite holiday destination is south-east Asia to fly to Goa to spend the year-end festive season.

Kochi, Rajasthan, the Andamans and a few other places are also drawing tourists from Calcutta, but Goa, with its beaches, waterfalls and old churches, seems to be the main attraction.

What has made Goa the top draw, apart from direct flights, is the fact that many hotels there are offering rooms at much cheaper rates compared with other years because of lack of international tourists, who typically drive the demand during this time.

SpiceJet launched it’s five-days-a week Calcutta-Goa flight on Friday. An official of the airline said 180 of the 189 seats were booked on the inaugural flight.

“The seats on the next few days’ flights are selling well. Most flights to Goa have more than 150 seats already sold. Our market survey had shown a lot of demand for Goa from Calcutta, so we decided to launch the flight,” said Debjit Ghosh, regional sales head (east), SpiceJet.

“The flights to Kochi and Port Blair are also chock-a-block during this period. Many tourists are using Kochi as a transit destination before going onwards to the Maldives,” said Ghosh.

IndiGo airline, which, too, has a direct flight to Goa, had its flight almost full over the past few days, said sources in the airline.

Officials at the Calcutta airport said seats on flights to other destinations, apart from those to metro cities, were remaining unsold. Most of the passengers on those flights are returning to their places of work.

“For many years, southeast Asia, particularly Thailand, has been a favourite Christmas and year-end destination for Calcuttans. The best alternative for that is Goa and this winter we have many clients who used to go abroad asking tour operators to make for them short holiday packages for Goa,” said Anil Punjabi, chairman, east, Travel Agents Federation of India.

He said about 50 per cent of the people who would earlier visit southeast Asia during the Christmas-New Year window are mostly travelling within the country this year and the bulk of them are going to Goa, Punjabi said. A few are headed for international destinations like Dubai and the Maldives.

Hoteliers in Goa said the yield this time was low because international tourists were not coming and they had to depend almost fully on domestic tourists. Apart from regular commercial flights, a number of chartered flights ferrying foreign tourists would land in Goa in winter every year.

“This year the bookings are good but the yield is less because of lack of international tourists and big spenders. We had to offer rooms at cheaper rates,” said Sudesh Shankar, one of the directors of Yu Hotel in Candolim, north Goa.

He said the hotel was more than 75 per cent full but the rooms were offered at rates 25 per cent less compared with the tariff offered during this period, considered the peak season.

Another hotelier said the tariff for regular rooms at his north Goa property would vary between Rs 22,000 and Rs 25,000 per night during Christmas-New Year window. This time the tariff has come down to Rs 17,000.

Ryan Rodrigues, the director of Spazio Leisure Resorts at Anjuna in north Goa, said his property, too, was having about 75 per cent occupancy but only after offering discounts on tariff. “From the usual Rs 7,000 per room per night, we had to bring down the tariff to Rs 4,500,” Rodrigues said on Friday.

He said many small and medium hotels were not getting enough guests because people were generally preferring known brands to ensure safety amid the pandemic.

Apart from Goa, tour operators said Rajasthan and the Andamans were attracting tourists, too. Tourists headed for Port Blair need to carry Covid-negative certificates and get tested within 48 hours of departure for the islands.

“Despite that many people have booked seats on flights to Port Blair,” said an official of a private airline.

Tour operators have also got group bookings for places like Rajasthan and Kerala, but there are fewer members in each group compared with previous years. “Earlier, one group would consist of 30 to 40 tourists. This year we have brought down the number to around 15,” said Raktim Roy, the managing partner of Dolphin Travels, a city-based travel agency.