‘Today, almost 50% of private bus travellers travelling from Chennai book online’- Ticket Goose Reports
- Ticketgoose.com recently releases a Report on long distance private bus passengers’ preferences and travel patterns and their impact on bus travel industry 45% of the private bus passengers booked ticket online as compared to 55% who booked offline
- 51% of people used their debit card to book their tickets
- Luxury buses are preferred as compared to ordinary ones as the age of the travel increases
- A good number (21%) bus travelers plan their travel atleast 7 days ahead
Chennai-based, Ticketgoose, was founded in 2007 and is promoted by Efficsys InfoTech India Pvt. Ltd., Chennai. TicketGoose provides information like price, availability and booking facility for buses to more than 5000 destinations in South India and currently have more than 500 bus travel partners. The Team at Ticketgoose is headed by Arun Athiappan, Co-Founder and CEO.
The survey ‘Long distance private bus passengers’ preferences and travel patterns’ was conducted to better understand the perceived preferences among long-distance private bus travelers in Chennai and its implications on the bus travel industry. This survey was conducted over a period of 45 days, between 1st of August to 14th September, 2012. Structured questionnaires were administered randomly for a sample size of 515, of age groups above 15 years of age at two major boarding points in the city – Koyembedu and Perugalathur.
Commenting on the release of the survey, Arun Athiappan, Co-Founder and CEO, TicketGoose.com, said, ‘The last couple of years has witnessed the increase in the numbers of bus ticketing portals in South and West of India, slowly bringing the change in the travel portal space that has been long dominated by airline ticketing portals and the lone train ticket portal. With comfort, convenience and punctuality maintained by the private bus operators coupled with hassle-free online booking, the private bus travel industry to all set to grow at the rate of 30% year-on-year to 35-40 thousand crores by 2015’.
Several factors contributed to the growth of private bus industry in India (particularly south and the west) over the decade that includes rapid growth in the IT sector, the pace of urbanization, rapid infrastructure growth and the people migrating to metros for better education and life.
Key Findings of the survey
- Bookings were done- 46% by operators, 44% by self and online and 9% booked through an agent
- For booking online, 51% used debit cards, 29% through net banking, 16% through Credit cards with only 4% paying cash on delivery
- A good 30% prefer Multi-volvo and Volvo, and other luxury buses for their travel
- 21% of the travelers seem to plan their travel 7 days ahead while 49% book in the last two days with a small number booking in-between
- The younger generation prefer to use bus for travelling as compared to their seniors
- Software professionals form the major chunk of professionals who use bus for long distance travel
- 55% use offline booking of bus tickets for their long distance travel as compared to 45% who book online
- As age increases, preferences to using Luxury buses also goes up, with the younger generation being more adventurous and would like to explore travelling by ordinary buses too
