Thanks to the package deals that are doing the rounds of the domestic holiday circuit, you can now check out the temple carvings at Khajuraho while staying the weekend at The Jass Oberoi for a mere Rs 5,200 (for two), including two nights and two days. Or get an eyeful of the Taj by moonlight, even as you stay at the Mughal Sheraton, Agra, for two nights and three days for Rs 3,999. And if tucking into seafood while sipping port wine by the sea is your idea of a romantic weekend, you can now get it at the Taj Holiday Village, Goa, for a never-before Rs 10,400.

All of which makes this winter an ideal time to get away because in the hurly-burly of today's existence where everyone is a firm believer in the Olympian credo of faster, higher, stronger, the firstcasualties are the family and a well-deserved break.

One of the major reasons for this focus on the domestic traveller is, of course, the decline in international travel. And the fact that the domestic tourism market is growing at over 20 per cent, thanks to the relative stability of the economy compared to the South-east Asian ones, where there was hardly a domestic tourism industry to speak of, relying almost entirely, as they did, on international travellers.

It is not surprising that the hospitality and travel industry is wising up to the logistics of the domestic circuit, where more people now have the money to spend, but without the time. As Kiran Bedi, General Manager (Marketing) for ITC Hotels puts it: ``Today's professionals often can't take long leave due to work pressure. This makes the weekend packages ideal since they can avail of three or four packages in a year instead of an extended, one-time holiday which might go waste because of clashing dates with the spouse or kids.''

Also, itallows the traveller to visit three or four different destinations in a year. For instance, if a couple goes to Udaipur the first time, it could be God's own country, Kerala, next time. In fact, Welcomgroup has even opened a new property at Ooty, to lure its customers from Silicon city Bangalore. And as part of its Welcombreak options, ITC Hotels Ltd offers three different packages -- mini, short and long breaks -- for two people with a bunch of freebies thrown in for good measure.

While the mini-breaks are for a day and two nights, short breaks are for two nights and three days and a long break is over three nights and four days. Similarly, the Taj Group of Hotels offers two-night, two-day stay at their properties across the country, with perks like free meals worth a specified amount, and use of all the facilities at the hotel.

The Oberoi group also has a series of packages -- the concept goes back to over a decade -- through both their own properties as well as their Trident chain of hotels. In fact,the Trident packages are more lucrative, giving you more or less the same facilities at much lesser price. For instance, a two-night, three-day stay at The Trident in the Pink City comes for as little as Rs 6,250, which by any standards, are throwaway prices for five-star comforts. ``The reason behind the different packages,'' explains Ravi Bhoothalingam, President, The Oberoi Group, ``is that leisure travellers have been seen to plan their travel and budgets differently.''

Most of the hotel chains have wisely chosen to keep in mind the fact that a large section of their target audiences have children. So, an added incentive for such travellers is the facility for the kids to stay with their parents for little or no extra cost. Trident hotels, for example, allow a complimentary bed in the room, while both the ITC group and the Ashok chain of the ITDC have no extra charges for children under 12. The Taj Group, however, charges extra for children over 12 or in the 5-12 age group, with price variationsdepending on the destination.

Not to be left behind, the Indian Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) has also come up with a clutch of offers, with special ones for tourists and business travellers. For example, the Ashok Family Holiday package allows you to check in at any of the ITDC's listed destinations with your spouse. No extra charge for two under-12 children and 20 per cent off on F&B. For the business traveller, there's the Ashok Smart Package, as part of which you need to pay only the room tariff. Meals are free for one person, but accommodation for the spouse in the same room is free.

The domestic traveller couldn't have got a better deal than this, thanks to the fact that the tourism industry is going through a rough patch due to global recession. Moreover, the South-east Asian countries are slashing their rates to keep their tourism sector at the front.

As Subhash Goyal, President, Indian Association of Tour Operators, explains: ``The much-touted figure of 2.3 million tourists coming toIndian annually is misleading. The actual number of foreigners is less than a million. The rest are either NRIs or people with Indian passports.'' In contrast, says Goyal, the domestic tourism market can touch almost 20 million, making the sheer enormity of numbers an incentive that can be ignored only at one's own peril.

And the reason for the slowdown in foreign tourists coming to India is a flawed civil aviation and tourism policy. For example, we neither have a visa-on-arrival policy, nor do we have sufficient international airports. So, if a person wishes to go to Guwahati from some South-east Asian country, he'd probably first have to come to Delhi or Calcutta and then go back to Guwahati. Or if he wishes to come from Perth, he'd have to go all the way to Canberra to get a visa.

It is this potent mixture of hits and misses that has led to the five-stars backing down from their earlier supercilious position where the thrust had been on international and business travel. As a result, most of them haveset up separate travel desks for their package reservations, apart from wooing potential customers through direct mailers as well as aggressive selling through their sales teams. Although the ITC Hotels has had the scheme for nearly a decade, it is only now that a separate desk has been set up. The ITDC, however, is introducing its schemes for the first time.

All of this points to a healthy season for the domestic traveller, and about time, too, to support the sagging tourism industry, which is highly labour-intensive. And for once, you can actually take a break without feeling either guilty about being away from your desk or having to come back to an empty bank-account!