Today, most travellers use online booking platforms to buy their air tickets. The convenience of e-commerce has persuaded many to overcome the fear of technology and pay online with their bank cards.
Most service providers have seen their costs plummet and sales increase due to providing customers with online payment facilities. It is therefore mind-boggling how certain providers still refuse to update their booking processes.
Ivan Falzon, Infrastructure Malta CEO, believes drivers could spend 65 per cent less time queuing for the Gozo ferry if online tickets were introduced.
He says it is time to act and allow passengers to pre-book their slots. Gozo Channel offers minimal online booking facilities but says it may extend the online booking system “later in the year”.
Gozo Business Chamber CEO Daniel Borg believes online booking will not solve the lengthy queues of motorists trying to board the ferry. He says the Mġarr port is too small, as it is not just the ferry that uses the space but also yachts, fishing vessels and the military.
Online booking systems will certainly not overcome the problems of the physical limitations of both the Ċirkewwa and the Mġarr terminals and the sharp increase in people crossing between the islands on special occasions.
Still, the introduction of an online booking system by Gozo Channel should provide obvious benefits to the company and travellers.
A 24/7 booking system could enable the ferry operators to introduce differential pricing. Sometimes, the ferries leave the terminals with few cars and passengers. If reduced prices are offered to travellers who prefer to save on ticket costs, some may decide to plan their travel accordingly.
Online booking lets operators leverage the vital benefit of making yourself available to take bookings throughout the day and at night. It reduces the need for physically staffed help desks as the booking software can help answer many travellers’ queries on the best way to plan their journey. Gozo Channel can reduce its operating costs by reducing the customer service workload.
Travellers who book online are most likely to make the booking for specific events on the islands.
They take time to consider the booking to choose the most suitable date and time to travel.
Moreover, the automated booking system also generates automated texts as e-mails or SMSs to travellers, to remind them of upcoming date bookings that have been made. A user-friendly online booking system will ensure that Gozo Channel receives payment immediately, reduce the risks of abuse inherent in the manual ticketing system and enable it to generate revenue by advertising third-party activities and services on its booking platform.
The ferry operator’s online booking system can also give detailed reports and insight into important issues for their business.
For instance, Gozo Channel could understand in real time the most popular events with customers and the most popular days, weeks and months to get the bookings. All this could help the operator to create a strategy to cover all of this. While there is a cost associated with upgrading the present manual booking system to an online one, in the longer term, the savings on operational costs will be substantial.
But, maybe, one of the reasons why Gozo Channel still does not have an online ticketing system is because doing things manually allows it to employ more people to do jobs that are nowadays mostly redundant.