Northstar

www.travelweekly-asia.com | 5 TECH TALKING E ven as airlines and hotels trailblazed the online world for over a decade, it was not till the last five years that the tours and activities sector began to be weaned off physical tickets. Seven years ago, Chan Chee Chong saw the opportunity to bring the sector into the digital age, founding technology company GlobalTix. Against obvious challenges posed by a highly fragmented tours and activities sector, Mr Chan spoke of the sector's growing adoption of technology to manage ticketing and distribution. The Singapore-based company today transacts some S$150 million (US$110 million) in tickets each year, processing one ticket every 10 seconds. As one of Asia's largest B2B marketplaces for tours and activities in Asia, it lists over 80,000 products from 120 cities and has a global distribution network of over 2,000 travel partners including TripAdvisor, Voyagin, Ctrip and Expedia. But there are more breakthroughs that GlobalTix is hoping to achieve. With offline sales continuing to make up more than 80% of tours and activities globally according to research by PhocusWright, digital channel managers need to be able to connect to physical point of sales systems to be useful. In the company's new phase, which Mr Chan dubbed 3.0, what began as an online channel manager has morphed into a hybrid model in order to capture sales from offline channels. Last October, the company unveiled a new enterprise-grade ticketing solution that is capable of capturing tickets and ancillaries that have been booked through offline channels in addition to online channels. The omni-channel solution can be integrated with the attraction's onsite components such as its point of sales kiosks and issue RFID wristbands, which can be used for entry and exit turnstiles, track locker rental and merchandising. Dynamic pricing These new capabilities answer to the growing need for attractions to handle more complex ticket tiers and bundles, such as at newly- opened attraction Nerf Action Xperience (NAX) arena in Singapore, which uses GlobalTix's technology to sell its tickets according to different attraction zones and timeframe, as well as manage onsite sales and functions. The company is also working to migrate National Gallery Singapore to its new solution by February. With digitalisation, Mr Chan expects that pricing in tours and activities could become "more dynamic" in the future. "It will not be as dynamic as what we're seeing with hotels and airlines, because I think consumers are not ready to accept such dynamic fluctuations in attraction ticket prices." "But what will change is that there will be more nuance in the way attractions segment their rates according to countries, peak evening and weekend times. Attractions can, for example, implement new business rules that state different entry times between Indonesian FIT travellers and Indonesian group travellers. Building a GDS for tours and activities The new capabilities are a crucial milestone in the Singapore-based company's ambitions to become a global distribution system (GDS) for the tours and activities sector. Fuelled by a S$12.5 million investment in November 2018, the company aims to surpass its annual ticket transaction of S$150 million in the next few years. "We're growing well and achieving more than double digit growth, and look to expand beyond Southeast Asia into North Asia. The next milestone will be one ticket every second, which we hope to achieve in the next three years." Mr Chan predicts that the company is five years away from its ambition to run a fully-fledged GDS marketplace for the tours and activities sector that will enable agents and operators to seamlessly transact tickets over a single platform. "The time will come when the market fully understands the need for a GDS in this sector. And when that time comes, it will be similar at least to how hotels are using channel management system," he said. To entice more small- and medium-sized attraction owners and niche operators to adopt its technology, the company has also rolled out a new monthly subscription for its cloud-based solution. From US$39 a month, he believes it is one of the cheapest in the market and has the potential to "truly disrupt the market". Through the solution, niche operators can access a wider range of tourism offerings such as food journeys, meditation classes and overnight squid fishing experiences. GlobalTix CEO Chan Chee Chong unveiled the company's new omni-channel ticketing solution in Singapore last October. Managing offline and online channels crucial to the Singapore-based tech company's vision to become full-fledged GDS for the sector. By Naomi Neoh GLOBALTIX 3.0: The future for tours and activities is omni-channel GlobalTix, one of Asia's largest B2B marketplaces for tours and activities, hopes to woo providers with its expanded omni-channel ticketing system. CREDIT: GETTYIMAGES CREDIT: GLOBALTIX

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