Bhubaneswar: Sudden surge in the case of Covid-19 and the closing of the Jagannath Temple has caused a large cancellation of hotel bookings in Puri.
It also coincides with the rejection by many hotels to restore the number of reservations to tourists.
The residential status of most hotels, which has been crowded with tourists up to a week ago, has dropped to around 25%.
During December-January, hotels usually watch the peak of business with a residential area of ​​around 80%.
“Our business was devastated by a pandemic in 2020 and 2021.
The third wave was anticipated too, had begun to take hospitality victims.
Even though the government has not imposed travel restrictions or kuncian, tourists are afraid and have begun to cancel their bookings.
Because the Jagannath Temple will still close for.
Worshipers until January 31, tourists are not interested in visiting Puri now, “Raj Kishore Patra, Secretary of the Hotel Puri Association, he said was harassed by many hotels to cancel bookings.
“Some of my guests from Pune have booked five rooms at the hotel overlooking the sea.
Alert on the Covid situation and followed the closure of the temple of the castle, they canceled the booking.
But this hotel now refuses to return the number of bookings,” said said.
However, hotels said they had asked their guests to reschedule their travel plans.
Many hotels point to reservation terms and conditions and refuse to return money on cancellation.
But when placing an order, not many hotels share cancellation costs with guests.
“We asked for guests to push back their travel plans.
It is difficult to return the entire number of orders because we charge money towards the online payment gateway fee and as a third party commission (online travel order platform),” Debasis Kumar, Vice President of the Puri Hotel Association, said.