Ranthambore National Park’s new safari booking system received an overwhelming response from domestic and foreign tourists, recording nearly 40,000 registrations within just two hours of opening, officials said on Sunday. According to the park administration, the booking window for safaris scheduled between October 1 and December 31 opened at 12 noon on August 1, with around 14,000 of the total registrations coming from foreign visitors.
Officials noted that a large number of users accessed the official portal simultaneously, causing a sharp surge in traffic. Despite this, the platform—including its verification, booking and live reporting systems—continued to function smoothly even during peak hours. Deputy Conservator of Forests, Ranthambore, Manas Singh, said a key feature of the new system was that safari seats remained available across multiple options even two hours after bookings began.
Singh noted that seats were still available for several dates, including high-demand periods such as the Diwali and Christmas holidays, with real-time seat availability allowing tourists to choose their preferred dates and safari options more conveniently and transparently. He added that despite heavy digital traffic, the system successfully detected and blocked multiple cyberattack attempts and unauthorised activities during the booking process, including a large number of suspicious access attempts, flagged IP addresses and fraudulent requests—all without affecting the portal’s normal functioning.
For the first time, foreign tourists were permitted to book safaris directly from their home countries through the official portal, a move that Singh said yielded encouraging results on its very first day. Foreign visitors accounted for nearly 40 percent of total bookings, with around 200 of them completing the process independently. Online bookings were recorded from several countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and the Netherlands.
The Ranthambore administration said the new digital booking system is aimed at making the safari reservation process more transparent, simple and equitable for all tourists, expressing hope that the initiative would continue to deliver a smoother, safer and more efficient booking experience going forward.