The rising inflation has increased ticket prices for flights, which have slightly dented their growth; "however, we hope that the economy gets back on track in time, as the rising cost of travel discourages customers to make any plans, said Shezil Mehkri, Co-founder and CEO of an online travel portal Sastaticket.
He expressed these views during an interview with Business Recorder here on Tuesday. He believed that this government has the right idea about the digitalization of the Pakistani economy, which not only makes governance much more efficient and transparent but also reduces socio-economic inequalities prevalent in the country.
"However, there is a lot that needs to be done in this aspect and the government needs to build an action plan for the next five years with clear checks and balances so that interest in digitalization does not wane. If emergency measures are not taken soon, we would be left far behind in the digital race," he added.
Before starting Sastaticket, he was the Co-CEO and Executive Director of Quality Aviation. "The success of e-commerce and high mobile and internet penetration in Pakistan inspired me to provide Pakistani travelers with an easy and transparent way to book their travel. As more and more Pakistanis shift from traditional commerce to e-commerce, launching sastaticket.pk in 2016 to empower Pakistani travelers and uplift the tourism industry in Pakistan only seemed to be a natural solution," he said.
When asked about what role the government can play in promoting ventures like his and e-commerce in general, he suggested that to promote online travel ventures, the government needs to revamp its regulations regarding the travel industry. "Air travel, which has become a necessity, is still being charged as a luxury item. No venture can grow profitably unless the basic issues regarding regulations are not cleared up," he added.
Talking about his venture, he said, "Sastaticket.pk is an online travel portal that makes travel bookings easy and transparent for Pakistani travelers. We connect travel suppliers with users thereby providing them a whole range of travel booking options. Flights and hotels both are on top of our priority list since our main goal is to offer a comprehensive travel booking experience to our customers. The main idea behind building our internal engineering team was to efficiently divide resources in building modules about flight and hotel platforms. The results have been impressive thus far but we are continuously working to ensure that the user journey is smooth and hassle-free.
"The increasing penetration of 3G and 4G services in Pakistan has helped us in powering our growth. Increasing connectivity allows Pakistanis to explore online services that make their lives so much easier and we are seeing this manifest itself in the form of an increasing number of online visitors," he added.
According to him, the company has grown tremendously from its inception. The volume of bookings has increased by more than 350 percent. They have an inventory of more than 500 hotels in Pakistan and almost all leading airlines operating in Pakistan are found on their portal.
He saw the future of his company bright. "With an increasing number of internet users in Pakistan and a growing segment of young educated Pakistanis looking to experience the cultural diversity around the world, we expect a rise in the demand for online travel booking platforms and in that aspect we are in a good place since our technology is getting better with every day along with our deep understanding of Pakistani travel industry."
Copyright Business Recorder, 2019
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