Train tickets go on sale online for the first time
When the purchase of plane tickets through the Internet has become an everyday occurrence, train tickets have finally chosen to "compromise" under the repeated calls from the outside world.
Recently, reporters learned from Kuxun, a living search website, that the website has signed an exclusive cooperation agreement with the Beijing Railway Bureau's ticket agency, taking the lead in realizing the online train ticket purchasing service, filling the gap in China's online train ticket sales. Kuxun revealed that currently users only need to log on to Kuxun.com, choose the route and can directly purchase one-way or round-trip train tickets departing from Beijing online. Users within the Fifth Ring Road of Beijing can enjoy the "cash-on-delivery" service.
According to the introduction, the realization of online train ticket purchasing is a first case in China. "Passengers no longer have to queue at the ticket agency, but can buy tickets simply through the mouse and keyboard," said Chen Hua, CEO of Kuxun.com. "The difficulty of buying train tickets" has always been an important social issue. The launch of the online ticket purchasing function is not only a functional supplement for Kuxun.com, but more importantly, it creates a new distribution channel for train tickets.
In addition, the fast and reliable online sales model will effectively solve a series of problems such as "fake tickets", benefiting consumers. "From now on, passengers can buy train tickets as conveniently as buying plane tickets," some experts even see this as a breakthrough in the e-commerce of train tickets. "The train ticket services that will be provided in the future will continue to update, from train ticket transfer search, scam identification, ticket reservation, to the current online train ticket purchase, these functions will solve the travel problems for hundreds of millions of Internet users." However, some people reminded that compared with the online sales of plane tickets, there are still policy obstacles for train tickets to go online.
"Currently, the train ticket information on Kuxun has been fully synchronized and updated with the official ticket sources of the railway bureau. After users choose online ticket purchasing, there will be dedicated personnel providing online customer service. After filling out basic information, they can easily wait for the train tickets to be delivered." The person in charge of the Kuxun Travel Channel introduced: "The current manual service time is 8:00-21:00 daily, in addition, Internet users can also book tickets directly by logging into Kuxun at any time." Reporters learned that currently each "cash-on-delivery" train ticket requires an additional 5 yuan delivery fee. It is reported that since the launch of the online ticket purchasing function for a week, the number of ticket buyers has exceeded 60,000. This is enough to prove that the demand potential for online sales is huge.
"Although China's tourism industry output value has exceeded billions and maintains a growth rate of 10.4% annually, in fact, the maturity of the tourism market is not high, and online tourism services require more technology and innovation." Chen Hua believes that reshaping the entire industry form through the combination of search technology and consumer interests is a force that can integrate the tourism industry chain through the Internet. Some experts believe that the cooperation model between search websites and offline agencies has strong replicability, especially in cities with mature network environments, it cannot be ruled out that the next step will witness a land grab movement in the online sale of train tickets.