Bus Ticket Reservation before a festival- A Nightmare

This is my post in this blog after a long hiatus of 2 years... My company has its own blogs and i have been posting there... I felt nostalgic, when i saw my friend's blogpage on this site today.. and decided not to abandon my first blog.. So here goes my comeback post...

Bus Ticket Reservation before a Festival- A Nightmare!!!

I had read a post recently, on the installation of two televisions in a few buses in Coastal Karnataka..The reason was the customers complained that some of them could not see the TV as it was placed on one side of the bus . This shows the importance the travel agencies give to the customers and their preferences.

Business is always driven by the economic fundas of Demand and Supply and the Travel business is not an exception . This is just an analysis of the travel agencies and their behavior, during different seasons.

The customer base of travel agencies in hyderabad mainly consists of software and bpo professionals whose hometowns are in Andhra Pradesh or in cities like Bangalore, Chennai, Pune..etc...The travel agencies have captured this customer base, by providing convinient timings[ mostly after working hours] and pickup spots in the centre of the city.Going ahead of others, some have also started websites, and customers can book their tickets online.Some reserve your tickets over phone, and you can pay them when you board the bus. All for the convinience of Customers ??? Great!!!

But all this Customer Worship is forgotten when the God Worshipping Season Comes.. Before a festival, no customer can book his/her ticket online. Websites dont show you buses for that date !!!. Reasons:If it is two weeks before the scheduled date, they say ticket booking hasn't started yet as it is too early now. If it is before a week , they say all the buses are filled .People queue up near the counters of these travel agencies for bus tickets to their hometowns. They know their Customers well - they can pay exorbitant price for a seat to reach their homes as they dont want to miss being at home during the festive season.

It is this festival time that the Travel agencies make big bucks in short time by forgetting ethics and selling tickets in Black . Most of the tickets are sold at atleast 100 bucks more than the normal price, sometimes at double the price. Larger the demand, higher the cost of the ticket. And generally this is done 2-3 days before the date of travel.

And finally the same customers for whom, they had started all the facilities suffer...
Is there any way out of this situation? Might be the key to the solution lies with us - the Customers!