The Hindu Business Line : Ticketvala.com offers easy bus ticket refund

Mumbai, Feb 9 While airline passengers are still struggling with the tedious procedures of getting their refunds back in case of cancellation , bus passengers now have an edge.

According to Ticketvala.com, a recently launched bus ticket distribution platform, if there is cancellation , the refund is immediately transferred to the credit card or refunded through check or cash depending on customer’s choice.

Ticketvala.com’s President and CEO, Mr Haranath Lokanadham, said: “The bus industry is much more complex than the airline only in the way it operates. It is fragmented and very regional and smallish in nature. Keeping these issues in mind it was imperative for us to attend to the customer pain points like money refunds in case of cancellations. Also for the profile of customers that we deal in becomes an important issue.”

Venture Capital

With seed capital of $2 million been invested by a Bangalore-based venture capitalist called Footprint Ventures, the company apart from real time bus bookings is offering other products like booking of hotels and car or bus on hires .

According to Mr Lokanadham, Ticketvala.com has an inventory of 200 hotels that fit into the company’s profile of customers. “As most of our customers are middle class people looking at bus as an affordable mode of travel, we are constantly innovating products that make sense to that section of customers.” He said as most traffic booked online is airline driven, large section of the hotel inventory present in that space is of star category, which might not be affordable to a bus traveller.

“Budget kind of hotel inventory for our target customer largely remains unaddressed and therefore we see good demand there.” The company is offering hotels only in the western States.

Expansion

The company that began operations in July last year and aims to have a pan-India presence soon. It has opened offices in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai, and will open one in Delhi shortly. With 200 destinations at the moment and a database of 90 bus operators, the company is looking to add 600 more destinations and taking the number of operators to 250 by April beginning as its new offices become fully operational.

Apart from online bookings, tickets can be booked on Ticketvala.com through its call centre too.