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Paromita Pain

Beat the queues with a click of your mouse. What e-ticketing can do for you... and what it can't.

Waiting and long queues have never been so passé. From the comfort of snug chairs at home or office, tickets can be booked for an evening out, holidays planned and accommodation arranged for. From air tickets to the more grounded reality of rail travel, the Indian consumer never had it so good. However, e-ticketing is a fairly new concept in India and is mostly restricted to the travel domain, especially air travel with trains coming a close second. Compare this to the situation in the US where two million business travellers spent $3 billion online in 1999, and a survey conducted by Forrester Research said the figure was set to touch $20 billion in 2004.

A reliable option

With increasingly unpredictable work hours and travel at short notice, e-ticketing offers an easy and reliable way out. Its 24-hour availability gives it an edge over traditional methods of ticket booking. E-ticketing involves the electronic delivery of encoded tickets, to be printed, if necessary, for use. Yet, even for Internet-savvy users, entering the world of online booking is often a hesitant step.

Ruma, a mother of two, from Kolkata, used to regularly go online to check out travel information and other tourism details but she is only a very recent convert to online booking. "To think it was only a matter of logging onto the Indian Railways site, referring to the train timings and carefully entering a few numbers. I love the sense of control and the amount of time I save. A travel agent's office can often be a nightmare with too many people ahead of you and the hassle of picking up the tickets. The challenge is entering the timings and card numbers carefully," she says. The tickets are then delivered with minimum courier charges.

Things are about to get better for Ruma and others like her as the Indian Railways plans to introduce e-ticketing as a pilot scheme on select Shatabdi Express trains by allowing passengers to print their own tickets. This would decongest the computerised passenger reservation system (PRS) counters and enable passengers to buy tickets till the time of the charting of reservations. Wait listed tickets would be cancelled automatically and the amount refunded electronically.

Two-way advantage

"In the first half of 2004-05, there were nearly 19 million air travellers in the domestic sector and this number is growing 20 per cent annually. Even if 10 per cent of these tickets are booked online, by 2007 it will result in tremendous cost savings for the airlines," says Rajnish Kapur, Executive Vice-President, eTravel Technology Division, Kale Consultants. "Most successful LCCs (low-cost carriers) sell over 75 per cent of their tickets directly over the Internet, thereby saving on the distribution cost and travel agency commission.

Within a year of its launch, Air Deccan has become the biggest e-commerce site in India with daily ticket sales in the range of Rs 1.15 crore," says Pankaj Narayan Pandit, a senior consultant with Infosys Technologies Ltd, specialising in the airline domain for over 16 years. Customers often prefer online booking because of the attractive freebies offered.

Air-India entered the e-ticketing market in 2002 with its portal www.airindia.com, where clients can buy tickets using credit cards via ICICI's Payment Gateway Service. Packed with incentives, in the introductory period, passengers booking online could request for preferred seats and meals, besides free membership to `Flying Returns' — Indian Airlines and Air-India's combined frequent flyer programme, double mileage points, and attractive fares.

As the booking is an electronic record kept in the company's reservations system, there is no danger of theft or loss of ticket. Since most airlines allow e-booking up to two hours before the flight, it reduces pre-travel rush to meet ticketing deadlines. Refunds are made through a repayment settlement with an authorisation number, whenever tickets are cancelled or reissued. Online bookings also facilitate speedier airport check-ins and other processes. While most e-ticketing Web sites have precise instructions, customers must familiarise themselves with the site to avail of the best fares and routes.

Hotels too are entering the portals of online booking. Welcome Group's Chola Sheraton Hotel in Chennai, which started online bookings about three years ago, has found that this option is popular among its patrons. Budget and other hotels catering primarily to business travellers also understand that it makes good business sense to be available on the Net and at the fingertips of customers who spend a greater part of their day connected. So hotels like Goutham Manor and Hotel Ambica Empire in Chennai offer online bookings.

Priya Cinema in Kolkata offers online booking for 51 seats. But there are some restrictions. Each user is allowed to book only a maximum of five seats. The customer is given a secret code to be revealed while collecting the tickets 24 hours ahead of the show. No ticket will be issued on the day of the show. The Satyam Cineplex in Chennai is also building up online ticketing facilities.

For event organisers, e-ticketing is a technological boon. They can regularly list events on Sulekha.com, which has a user-friendly site. All listings are free and, for a small fee, organisers can get additional promotions. Arti Patel, Service Head, Ticketing, Sulekha.com says, "Organisers benefit as they can set up ticket sales in a single location. We set up the ticketing facility within 24 hours. The organisers can monitor sales, revise settings and download sales data. In the old system, they need to distribute tickets to various outlets and keep track of multiple vendors; the collection of unsold tickets and cash is a logistical nightmare. With online ticketing, this is eliminated. At the end of each event or movie, they get a single payment from us."

Clients can buy tickets online to avoid a sold-out situation. They pay using a credit or debit card. An order receipt, with a unique order number, is delivered to their e-mail address, he adds. At the venue, an authorised person verifies this number before granting entry. Sulekha plans to launch online booking for movies in association with Chennai's Abhirami theatres next year.

Issues to consider

While airline booking is popular online, the Indian e-ticket initiative needs to be streamlined further. As Pandit says, "The airline industry in the US offers e-tickets as a default option and more than 60 per cent tickets in the domestic sector are e-tickets. The challenge now is to offer e-tickets for international travel across different airlines. However, the airlines do not have agreements with each other and the GDS (Global Distribution System) is not ready with a global e-tickets solution yet. IATA has decided 2007 as the deadline for paper tickets and the industry will have to adapt. Air travellers buying on the Internet are mostly businesspersons. Once people realise that the benefits offered by e-ticketing are real, more customers will log on rather than walk in."

Kapur adds, "E-ticketing in India exists in various forms and only a few players provide the entire e-ticketing process. Since this is a paperless transaction stored on a machine it is cause for concern if systems are down. Credit card fraud or piracy is also a concern and the public needs to be made aware of the security of such transactions. Systems need to be robust and provide 100 per cent error-free and hassle-free travel to customers. In case of any discrepancy, the customer should be handled with care and not with disdain."

Says Arti, "India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. US customers graduated to high-speed Internet connection after using dial-up for several years. But most new Indian customers are directly getting a high-speed line in India. The Indian consumer is more techno-savvy and also enjoys a higher disposable income compared to previous generations. Also, movies and events are so popular in India that without advance booking, customers end up buying tickets in the black market at a hefty premium. Online ticketing will eliminate this. Last year we expanded into India with online classifieds, and managed to penetrate the market to a significant extent. I am sure ticketing will get a similar response and acceptance."

When consumers get the best costs and services on the Net, it will certainly make sense not to buy elsewhere.

Picture by Bijoy Ghosh

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