NEWS
STAYCATION: INDIA’S NASHIK WINE REGION RECEIVED 75,000 VISITORS OVER FESTIVE SEASON
By Siulan Law Mathews DipWSET
11-1-2021
Source: Soma Vine Village
India’s Nashik wine region has benefited from the trend of staycation, the region has received nearly 75,000 wine tourists over the Christmas and New Year season, with an increase in daily footfall by more than three times since last October when resorts were allowed to reopen.
Wineries in Nashik were ordered to close for more than six months last year to control the pandemic, wine tourism picked up very quickly once the close order was lifted.
Yatin Patil, a managing committee member of All India Wine Producers Association (AIWPA), told India local media that the curfews and restrictions have worked in favour of promoting domestic wine tourism.
“The daily footfall in October was around 400 per day on average, which has gone up to 1,300 per day from the start of December. All the resorts in Nashik have been booked till end of January for the weekends,” Patil said.
According to Monit Dhavale, senior vice president for hospitality at Sula Vineyards, occupancy rate at the vineyard’s two resorts with a total of 61 rooms topped 95% over the festive season.
He said the guests were mostly from Mumbai, Pune, Surat and Indore, all are within four-hour drive from Nashik. On New Year’s Eve, Sula had received at least 1,200 visitors.
“Tourists who normally visited foreign countries at this time of the year have not been able to do so, and therefore chose to be here. Earlier, visitor stays would be for around two days, but now they have gone up to four to 10 days with visitors taking advantage of the work from home arrangement as well,” Dhavale told local media.
Jagdish Holkar, president of AIWPA, said while domestic tourists came to Nashik in droves during Christmas and New Year, the wineries had COVID safety measures firmly in their minds all the time, and had worked very hard to ensure that the social distancing rules are being observed.
(the writer can be contacted at: info@thewinechronicle.com)
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