‘Corona’effect: People cancel trips, bookings
| Date :16-Mar-2020 |
By Ankita Garg :
FOLLOWING strict advisory against coronavirus, many families in Bhopal are cancelling holidays they had planned well in advance as the number of cases are rising continuously. There is no case of COVID-19 in Bhopal yet, however, people have been asked to follow all precautionary measures and avoid attending functions and gatherings. The Health Department has also released an advisory and asked people to avoid travelling. Many countries have cancelled the visas too. Exams in maximum schools end by February end so many families plna their trips and vacations in the month of March. People who had booked their flight tickets, hostels, cabs etc are cancelling them.
Navya Bhatnagar, a teacher had planned her honeymoon to Italy this month but it has been cancelled due to coronavirus threat. “Earlier, when we had planned the trip we never thought that coronavirus would be a pandemic and will result in lockdowns. We had made advance payment from hotels to flight bookings. Even adventurous activities were booked at a higher price in Italy. Now, my parents have asked us to cancel everything.” She further added that the wedding was on March 10 in which many guests did not turn up and cancelled the function.
“We had booking for over 500 guests at a hotel but hardly 200 guests arrived for the wedding and most of them were locals. No relatives or friends from out of Bhopal attended the marriage function,” added Navya. Lakshmi Goel, a resident of Danish Nagar, said that she had planned a trip to Shirdi Sai Baba from March 19 which she has cancelled now.
“I had planned to visit Shirdi with my relatives. But everyone asked to cancel the trip due to corona threat so we have cancelled our train tickets and hotel bookings. We had already made 50 per cent payment at hostel and cab driver. We have to face loss after cancelling this trip.” Ritesh Arya, an architect says, “My two daughters are studying in Carmel Convent and their exams usually end by February end. So, every year we go on a holiday trip in March second week. This year too we had bookings for Bali from March 18 to 23 which we have cancelled now.” He further added, “As we did not get a direct flight, we had to take a halt either at Singapore or Malaysia. But these areas are badly affected with coronavirus so we planned and decided to go via Dubai.” However, Arya has cancelled all plans to Dubai.