WIT: Cracking the Indian cash barrier

Tuesday, 23 Jun, 2011 0

India is a hard market to crack for online players in the travel sector because cash is still king, and few want to pay online with a credit card.

Lynne Oldfield, GTA senior director Australasia and India, said a lot of cash transactions are made “to hide black money” and customers are still going through traditional channels “where cash rules”.

She said credit card use was not widespread in India and those that did have credit cards were reluctant to give their card details to a website.

Danny Kondic, vice president-channel management for Abacus International, said it was almost impossible to pick winners in the online travel space in India.

He said Australia was not a sought after destination for first time travellers from India, so “there is a huge sector of the public that you don’t want to go near.”

Kondic said Australia receives the more mature travellers from India but “trying to target your market in India can still be overwhelming”.



 

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Ian Jarrett



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