Gone are the days of buying and selling physical tickets to attractions. With e-tickets, travel agents can engage and pre-sell to “invisible travellers/customers” who are increasingly booking online, says Chan Chee Chong, CEO of Globaltix at Bash (Build Amazing Startups Here) in Singapore on November 18.

Gone are the days of buying and selling physical tickets to attractions.

With e-tickets, travel agents can engage and pre-sell to “invisible travellers/customers” who are increasingly booking online, says Chan Chee Chong, CEO of Globaltix at Bash (Build Amazing Startups Here) in Singapore on November 18.

This is the key premise behind Chan’s cloud-based e-ticketing platform, which he started with his brother Chee Kong (who is the COO) in April 2013.

After undergoing an upgrade with enhanced featured and improved capabilities, the platform re-launched this year with the support of Singapore Tourism Board (under the Business Improvement Fund).

Globaltix enables merchants (attractions and F&B outlets) and travel partners to access and distribute travel-related products conveniently via a single marketplace.

Attractions can customise visitor experience by tapping on analytics of tourist patterns, while travel partners are able to bundle and customise products, as well as manage their sub-agents via the platform.

“Essentially, we aim to do two things for our partners: drive revenue, and increase operational efficiency,” asserted Chee Chong.

The platform has received strong support from the industry so far, with major attractions like Universal Studios Singapore, Wildlife Reserves Group and Gardens by the Bay already signed on, and travel partners such as Singapore Airlines, Trade Winds, Nam Ho Travel Services and Star Holiday Mart who are utilising their ticketing solution.

Currently, it has offices in Bangkok, Indonesia and Philippines with plans to venture into about 20 cities around the region in the next two to three years.

According to Singapore Tourism Board’s Chief Technology Officer, Quek Choon Yang, Globaltix is “a good example of the outcome that STB seeks”, in terms of using technology to adapt to travellers’ habits, and driving change in the travel industry.

For travel agents, it helps in optimising revenue and sales.

Said Dominic Ong, managing director of Star Holiday Mart who started using Globaltix this year, “In the past, we controlled our attractions using physical tickets and bought them in bulk…this means that we sometimes run into the problem of holding expired tickets, which affects revenue.

“With Globaltix, we can better control the stock and our revenue; it’s also more convenient as we can send the tickets to our customers via email.”

When it comes to the platform’s usability, Ong said that he took just thirty minutes to understand how it works.

“Even my 50-year-old staff had no problems using it,” he added.

by Lee Xin Hui (Travel Week Asia)