New ways of travel: Online bookings
View(s):The outbound travel industry has evolved over the years and has become extremely volatile.
The challenges are vast, as competition amongst the airlines, the travel agents, the numerous online booking engines that cover air and hotel bookings, coupled with the rules and regulations meted out, specially by the airline fraternity, creates the impression of being unjust at times, in the eyes of the passenger.
Currently, the early bird catches the worm…. a traveller who desires the best price and who does not, needs to be disciplined and be certain of his travel dates and book early to get the best possible price. A passenger who books late, in other words, closer to his travel date, will not get the same price as the one who booked early.
There have been instances where two passengers would get talking on a flight and find one had paid a higher fare than the other and assume he has been overcharged. But it is not so … reason being that airlines are conscious of yield management and in order to increase revenues, each cabin, first, business and economy, have varied fare levels, identified by a booking class. Each booking class is allocated a certain quantum of seats and once the lowest priced booking class gets filled the next higher booking class is used and the price on that is higher.
Turn the clock back and in the days gone by, there was one fare level for each cabin and one could book at any time.
Usually the first and business class cabins could have three pricing structures and the economy cabin around 12 different prices. Thus, the need to book early. But there is a catch to it. The earlier you book, the earlier you need to pay. Example is if a booking is made for travel in December, which is six months from now, you are given a time limit to issue the ticket within a two to three week period. Issuing the ticket early has its travails as one cannot, subsequently change their travel date unless a date change fee is paid.
There are many examples of the airlines seeking every opportunity to increase their revenue. Be it a date change or a refund or a no show on a flight, it all comes with a price.
Tickets issued also come with conditions, where some tickets are instant purchase and the price is valid only for that day. Some are advance purchase tickets. This means there is a rule that governs the issue of this ticket, where one has to issue it either 14 or seven days before travel. If you are within this period, you cannot get the benefit of the advance purchase fare. There are also tickets that are non-refundable or no date change permitted.
The above is an example of some of the issues faced when making travel plans.
Turn the clock back and there were none of these restrictions which highlights how professional the airline industry has become.
Thus it is important that a traveller clarifies the conditions of his ticket before it is issued. If you cannot adhere to some of these conditions, paying a higher fare will release you from some, but not all the conditions
How do travel agents contend with online booking engines? With the development of online purchases, there is a small portion of business that the agents lose and year on year, this portion has increased. But not to levels that would be alarming. The agents contend with this by striving to excel in the services that are provided to their customers, which are a wide range of products.
When a customer is confronted with a dilemma, obtaining a response or a solution online, can be trying.
Whereas in the same situation, the customer makes a telephone call to his travel agent, at whatever time of day or night, he is available to assist to the best of his ability.
Sri Lankans have a penchant for travel and this is proven where year on year, statistics prove the growth in ticket sales.
The outbound travel industry caters to segments such as business, leisure, labour, visiting friends and relatives, pilgrim, student, sports, migrant and incentive travel.
Labour travel is estimated at 45-50 per cent of the ticket sales and thereafter it is the business and leisure travel that has the larger volumes
Credit cards too have facilitated the growth in leisure travel. They also offer easy payment terms which can be spread over 12 months and it certainly has been a boon to the traveller.
Leisure travel has grown to an extent that people are daring and have a thirst to explore new destinations.
( The writer is a veteran in the tourism industry )