When the National Lockdown was imposed in South Africa in 2020, the travel and event industries were brought to a standstill. As we are moving past the restrictions and challenges that came with the pandemic, South Africans are again travelling and attending sports, music, cultural, and other events. Let’s explore how the sector is recovering along with the opportunities that this presents to your digital goods and services business.

When it comes to retailers, travel and event ticketing can form an important part of your value-added services (VAS) portfolio. Rapidly growing in the post-pandemic, digital landscape, this product is an underestimated digital goods and services offering but promises an exciting future.

Travel and Event Ticketing as a VAS product encompasses (but is not limited to) intercity bus tickets, flight tickets, and event tickets.

In South Africa, intercity bus operators provide transport to over 5 million people who often cannot afford flight tickets - bringing in annual revenue of R5 billion. This industry completely ground to a halt during the hard lockdown as inter-provincial transport was banned.  As lockdown eased, buses started running again and today citizens are making intercity bus journeys for work, family, and recreation reasons. Stats SA March figures indicate 56% of travellers travelled by road, whereas 42.2% travelled by plane. Significantly, most tourists from the SADC region came predominantly by road (86.7%), indicating the popularity of bus travel for cross-border travel within this region.

Having a look at the airline recovery statistics: In 2019, 4.5 billion people flew - massively dropping to 1.8 billion passengers in 2020 as a result of the pandemic restrictions. Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) reports a 48% recovery in the 2021/2022 financial year as passengers are beginning to travel again.

As restrictions were lifted, sports and cultural events are once again being hosted live. This means that sales are growing and consumers are looking for more convenient ways to purchase tickets for music, food, sports, festivals, lifestyle, tourism, theatre events, and experiences.

The recovery of the industry coincides with the surge in digital adoption and increase in consumer awareness of the various digital goods and services and channels available to them.

According to our latest industry research, 46% of consumers believe they will begin to purchase travel and event tickets as a VAS product in the future. This is an exciting prospect as only 19% of consumers in the survey state that they currently purchase this product. 

When it comes to the consumers who purchase travel and event tickets, 31% do so via a bank app, 28% at a retailer till point, and 25% at a retailer money market counter. This shows that, currently, retailers are more popular than banks when purchasing this product. 

A key component to success when it comes to travel and event ticketing is being able to offer your customers a one-stop shop for convenience.  When consumers visit your store, give them the option to shop for their groceries; purchase VAS products such as airtime; pay bills; and reserve and pay for a flight or bus journey. 

Another feature that consumers are increasingly making use of is the option to make online reservations for tickets and then heading in-store to pay for the tickets when they are doing their grocery shopping. This not only correlates with the adoption of digital (mobile and online) shopping and payment methods but also illustrates the appeal of in-store payment methods through which those without access to banking services can complete payment of their booking. Pick ‘n Pay, for example, offers tickets to five different domestic bus companies and nine airlines through Travelstart, and event tickets through Webticket using a combination of online reservations, in-store reservations, and in-store payments. This highlights the importance of convenience to the customer of both reservation method and payment method.

An in-store and digital ticketing offering can offer your customers a better experience than traditional methods of booking. Consumers can book through mobile channels any time of the day, can avoid queues and wait times, and don’t have to hand over credit card details to third parties.

It is important to note that only 1% of consumers make use of retailer apps when it comes to travel and event ticketing. 

The low adoption rate of retailer apps presents an opportunity when it comes to your digital strategy and app functionality. If you can provide an easy-to-use, more comprehensive mobile offering to consumers you can take control of this VAS market. Banks also have the opportunity to capture VAS market share with their already-popular app offerings (prefered by 31% of survey respondents) if they build out their service to offer broader ticketing types. 

Retailers also stand to benefit from linking your loyalty programmes to travel and event ticketing purchases. This way, customers earn points through paying for services, potentially boosting customer retention and loyalty. They will be encouraged to spend their points in-store and book through your business in order to earn more loyalty points.

When it comes to offering a stand-out digital marketplace that will attract new customers and increase revenue, travel and event ticketing has a much larger role to play in the future. We suggest you build this product into your offering as soon as possible, in order to stay competitive within this evolving ecosystem.

‍We would love to chat with you to explore how to grow your VAS portfolio. With pre-built integrations for VAS products, we can help get you to market fast and launch new digital goods and services quickly. Get in touch today.