Surging air fares and lower commissions from airlines have thrown travel portals under the bus, literally.
Launch bus ticketing services as revenues from air booking business dip
KOLKATA: Surging air fares and lower commissions from airlines have thrown travel portals under the bus, literally. As revenues from airline services shrink, these sites are launching bus ticketing services as an alternate source of earnings.
They are selling tickets primarily for three-hour, overnight routes on Volvo or AC buses that travellers can take to a smaller town after disembarking from a trunk-route flight. For instance, a traveller alighting from a Mumbai-Chennai flight, can take a bus straight to Madurai. He can do all his bookings, including his bus travel, online at one shot.
Bus ticketing was an uncharted territory hitherto due to fragmentation in the industry. There are thousands of bus operators and getting all of them on a single platform was thought to be a challenging task. But, travel portals are now entering the Rs 15,000 crore sector as they have realised that margins can be as high as 2-10% as against 5% for air ticketing. At times, the margins as much as Rs 500 on a ticket, said an industry expert.
Ezeego1.com, a virtual travel marketplace, has tied up with redBus, said to be the largest consolidator of bus operators (over 270), to provide bus bookings on a real-time basis.
Neelu Singh, COO, Ezeego1.com, said: “This tie-up will offer our customers one more option for their travel needs.”
Dhruv Shringi, co-founder and CEO, Yatra.com, told DNA Money: “We aim to enhance our product portfolio and a new area we will enter on a large scale is online bus ticketing. Some of the routes being mulled are Bangalore-Chennai, Ahmedabad-Mumbai and Delhi-Vaishnodevi.”
Travelocity, too, is exploring options in this space. Himangshu Singh, managing director, Travelocity India, said: “Our focus now is on adding value to our business. Thus, we are looking beyond air ticketing, flights and hotels.” redBus claims to be the first to introduce bus ticket bookings on the web or mobile. “The internet now is slowly gaining a considerable share in the bus ticketing pie. We were the first ones to introduce bookings through the mobile,” Phanindra Sama, CEO, redBus, said.
m_madhumita@dnaindia.net
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