Small towns party as metros suffer lockdown blues

Kanav Khandelwal celebrated his 14th birthday on the Jaipur Metro on March 23. Accompanied by family and friends, he cut a cake and danced with his friends before the guests were served vada pav, sweets and juices. From 5 pm to 9 pm, the party rolled on as the train shuttled multiple times between Mansarovar and Badi Chaupar stations, a distance of 12 km in the heart of the pink city.“We booked two coaches by paying Rs 10,000, plus taxes,” Kanav’s cousin Krishan Gopal Gupta, who is a wholesaler in Jaipur, told ET over the phone. “Cost of food and decoration was extra. We took permission about 10 days before the event by depositing a refundable amount and signing a bond paper.” A Jaipur Metro Rail spokesperson confirmed such parties regularly take place, adding that guests have to mandatorily maintain social distancing and use only packed food. “In the past three months, we have had four such bookings, mainly for birthdays and retirement parties. The entire metro (four coaches) can be booked,” he added.Jaipur is no exception. In the middle of the gloom ushered in by Covid-19, the well-heeled in India’s smaller cities are spending and celebrating — from booking a metro train for a bash or an entire high-end resort for a wedding, to buying a 310cc BMW bike or a Lamborghini car priced at Rs 4-10 crore.In the middle of the pandemic, Shivapada Ray, head of BMW Motorrad India, got a call from a Siliguri resident grumbling about the tortuous 600-km journey he had to make to Kolkata to purchase his dream bike and insisting that the luxury automobile manufacturer have a showroom right in the middle of the north Bengal town.“Today’s generation is very different,” said Sharad Agarwal, head of Lamborghini India. “Consumers want to own super luxury cars in smaller markets, aligning with global trends.” According to Lamborghini’s data, smaller cities in India account for about 25% of its total sales.Bipul Chandra, MD, Ducati India, agrees. He added that the availability of many reasonably-priced models — along with plenty of choices in the 300-600 cc segment — has helped his company gain traction in smaller towns in the past few months, even as the pandemic continued to be a concern. In India, Ducati bike’s base model costs Rs 8 lakh, with high-end versions costing more than Rs 17 lakh.BMW and other luxury automakers are now opening satellite stores in non-metros. Early this week, BMW launched a store in Andhra Pradesh’s Vijayawada and is now focusing on cities such as Mangaluru, Kolhapur, Meerut and Shillong. In the next couple of years, 30-35% of BMW sales is expected to come from tier II markets, Ray said. There is a clear business case outside metros as dealers in each small city are now aiming at a monthly sale of 20-30 motorbikes of 310cc as well as 15-20 larger bikes, he added.That the small cities have metamorphosed into party hotspots is further confirmed by the fact that many farmhouses and boutique resorts in cities such as Bikaner, Aurangabad, Kodagu and Kodaikanal have a waiting period of six to eight weeks, said wedding planners. According to a planner, Prerana Saxena of Theme Weavers, destination weddings are now preferred to large-format ones.In the South, places such as Kodaikanal have become popular wedding destinations in the last few months, says Shruti Shibulal, chief executive and director of Tamara Leisure Experiences. It is easier to curate and customise events when a family books an entire property, said Shibulal, who is daughter of Infosys cofounder SD Shibulal.

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