Mumbaikars head to hill stations to beat the heat

According to popular travel booking website Travelyaari, Goa, Manali and Srinagar are the top picks this weekend. Hotels have announced cashback offers and discounts on hotel room prices to encourage travel. “The upcoming long weekend has seen a huge surge in hotel bookings at destinations close to the metros, with a number of these being sold out already. The airfares have surged between routes such as Delhi-Kolkata, Delhi-Hyderabad, Mumbai-Goa, the reason for which can also be attributed to the grounding of A320 Neos. We have specifically witnessed heightened demand for destinations like Pune, Alibaug, Khandala, Lonavala, Daman, Goa, etc., for travellers from Mumbai,” added Sharat Dhall, COO (B2C), Yatra.com

“Domestic and in-bound travellers are heading to destinations like Munnar, Wayanad and Ooty in the South, Udaipur, Mount Abu, Chandigarh and Manali in the north and Shillong, Guwahati, Gangtok and Darjeeling in the east, that have a pleasant weather,” added Rakshit Desai, Managing Director, FCM Travel Solutions, the Indian subsidiary of Flight Centre Travel Group, Australia.

According to highway officials, traffic is expected on major roads including Mumbai-Goa, Mumbai-Pune expressway and Mumbai-Nashik on Thursday and Sunday. “We would restrict movement of heavy vehicles between 8 am-12 pm and 5 pm-9 pm on Thursday to facilitate traffic on the roads. There would be heavy bandobast of police on these roads specifically to manage traffic. Similar guidelines will be observed on Sunday evening and Monday morning as well,” said Vijay Patil, state Highway Traffic Patrol (SHTP) superintendent of police.