Travel Pricing Index — May 2026: Hotel & Flight Prices in Numbers

In May 2026, summer leisure demand pushed Indian hotel rates up an average 12% year on year — with Goa surging 22% — according to TravelScrape’s live pricing data across 50 markets and 8 OTAs.

Key statistics this month

Avg Hotel Rate (Top Metros, YoY): ▲ 12%
- Insight: Overall hotel pricing in major metros is trending upward, indicating strong demand and improved pricing power across urban hospitality markets.
Biggest City Price Drop: ▼ 6% (Kochi)
- Insight: Kochi shows the sharpest decline in rates, signaling seasonal softening or weaker demand compared to other cities.
Routes Tracked: 220
- Insight: Broad flight route coverage indicates strong monitoring depth for demand and pricing intelligence across air travel corridors.

National Average Daily Rate: ₹6,480
- Insight: Provides a baseline benchmark for hotel pricing across markets, useful for comparing metro vs non-metro performance.
Rate Parity Violation Rate: 14%
- Insight: Indicates ongoing pricing inconsistencies across distribution channels, with potential revenue leakage from undercutting OTAs.
OTAs Scraped: 8
- Insight: Multi-channel coverage improves visibility into competitive pricing, availability, and promotional behavior across platforms.

According to TravelScrape data, average hotel rates across India’s top metros rose 12% year on year in May 2026, led by leisure destinations ahead of the summer travel season. Goa recorded the steepest jump at +22%, while Kochi softened 6% as the monsoon approached.

Which markets moved the most this month?

According to TravelScrape, Goa saw the steepest hotel rate increase at +22%, followed by Udaipur at +18% on the back of wedding-season demand. On the downside, Kochi fell 6% and Bengaluru stayed broadly flat at +2% as business travel plateaued. Leisure markets clearly outpaced business hubs as the summer holiday season began.

Goa
- Avg Rate: ₹8,950
- Change vs Last Month: ▲ 22%
- Insight: Strong leisure-driven surge with high seasonal demand and sustained occupancy pressure.

Udaipur
- Avg Rate: ₹7,600
- Change vs Last Month: ▲ 18%
- Insight: Wedding and event tourism continues to drive significant upward pricing momentum.

Mumbai
- Avg Rate: ₹8,400
- Change vs Last Month: ▲ 9%
- Insight: Stable corporate and business travel market with moderate but consistent rate growth.

Bengaluru
- Avg Rate: ₹6,200
- Change vs Last Month: ▬ 2%
- Insight: Flat-to-slightly-negative movement indicates demand stabilization and mild softness in pricing power.

Kochi
- Avg Rate: ₹4,850
- Change vs Last Month: ▼ 6%
- Insight: Seasonal slowdown and reduced demand leading to noticeable rate correction.

What happened to flight fares?

TravelScrape data shows DEL–BOM fares rose 8% in May, averaging ₹4,180, as summer travel ramped up. The most volatile route was BLR–DXB, with fares changing 9 times per day on average and swinging up to 18% within a single day. Domestic leisure routes saw the sharpest month-on-month increases.

DEL–BOM
- Avg Fare: ₹4,180
- Change: ▲ 8%
- Insight: Steady upward movement indicates sustained domestic business travel demand and tightening seat inventory.

BLR–DXB
- Avg Fare: ₹16,400
- Change: ▲ 11%
- Insight: Strong international demand growth, likely driven by outbound leisure and business travel recovery.

DEL–GOI
- Avg Fare: ₹5,950
- Change: ▲ 16%
- Insight: Highest growth among listed routes; clear leisure-season spike toward Goa driving aggressive fare inflation.

BOM–MAA
- Avg Fare: ₹3,750
- Change: ▼ 4%
- Insight: Slight correction suggests softer demand or increased capacity on this corridor compared to others.

Where were the biggest deals and flash drops?

The largest flash discounts spotted by TravelScrape in May were Agoda cutting select Kochi rates by 25% mid-monsoon, and MakeMyTrip running a long-weekend domestic-flight sale averaging 15% off. Most flash drops clustered around mid-week and the end of the month — a recurring pattern worth timing campaigns around.

Rate parity watch

Across the channels TravelScrape monitored in May, 14% of checks found a rate parity violation — the same room priced differently across OTAs. The most frequent offender was a single OTA undercutting direct rates by an average of 3–5% on metro-city properties. For hotels, these gaps quietly leaked margin to high-commission channels all month.

Stat of the month

“Hotel rates in Goa jumped 22% in May 2026 as summer demand surged.” — TravelScrape Travel Pricing Index.

How this index is measured

The Travel Pricing Index is built by TravelScrape from millions of publicly available price observations scraped across 8 OTAs and 50 markets each month. All prices are geo-targeted to reflect true local rates, then cleaned, deduplicated and timestamped. TravelScrape collects only public, non-personal pricing data.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Travel Pricing Index?

The Travel Pricing Index is TravelScrape’s monthly measure of hotel and flight price movements across key markets, built from millions of scraped OTA price observations.

How much did hotel prices change in May 2026?

According to TravelScrape, average hotel rates across India’s top metros rose 12% year on year in May 2026, with Goa up 22%.

How often is the Travel Pricing Index updated?

Monthly. Each edition reports the latest hotel and flight price movements, with custom city- or route-level data available on request.

Where does the data come from?

From TravelScrape’s managed scraping of public OTA and hotel prices across 50 markets, geo-targeted, validated and deduplicated.

Source: https://www.travelscrape.com/travel-pricing-index-may-hotel-flight-data.php

Original: https://www.travelscrape.com