A finalist at WiT Singapore 2018 and the winner of ‘Most Promising Travel Startup’ at the Echelon Asia Summit 2018, BookMeBus has big plans to shake up the transportation sector in Cambodia and beyond.
If BookMeBus has its way, people in Cambodia and eventually across ASEAN, as well as travellers visiting the region, will be able to book bus and ferry tickets easily online and truly explore new and far-flung places in-destination.
Said Panhavuth Heng, chief commercial officer, “I always feel like everyone should be able to travel but it’s expensive in Cambodia. If people do not own a car, and they’re afraid to use the bus, how will they go anywhere? The bus is the best option, but trust will stop them from going and taking that step outside.
“We really want to solve the safety issues surrounding ground transportation… we want to make sure that people who travel to ASEAN can trust local services.”
BookMeBus, launched four years ago, to solve the problem of bus transportation in Cambodia has made great strides in its journey. It has grown to a team of 35 staff and is now expanding into neighbouring markets such as Thailand and Vietnam.
It has also evolved from a straightforward web-based bus-ticketing platform to a GDS-like network to distribute local bus tickets through international OTAs – which is where Heng believes BookMeBus can make the difference.
While Heng believes bringing bus ticketing online will change how people explore Cambodia as a destination, he is aware of the challenges the startup will need to confront to make this vision happen.
While it began as a straightforward bus-ticketing provider, Heng said that it is pulling away from B2C to focus more on how it can continue to help digitise the local transport industry to benefit domestic and foreign travellers.
So far, its growth has been quick but steady. BookMeBus became profitable within four months of its launch and its local customer base doubled last year. However, the lack of financial infrastructure in the country has been a major limiting factor of its growth.
Heng stated that 85% of Cambodians do not have a bank account, making mobile payments a massive opportunity in the market. BookMeBus already allows for card payments, cash on delivery, as well as mobile payments (with TrueMoney) on its platform, but more work needs to be done.
It has expanded its service to become a more B2B-centric solution to offer fleet management tools, and act as a GDS to OTAs (currently serving Ctrip and Busbot), distributing online inventory and providing instant booking.
The hope is that by developing bus companies’ online services and capabilities with BookMeBus’ tools, they can help them become more reliable and reputable, boosting customer confidence when booking a ticket. “We are providing trusted travel through international OTAs… because of the BookMeBus system.”
“We’re not [directing] customers to ourselves [to reap booking fees etc.], but to each individual [bus company] website – with their own loyalty programme etc. –… so people can begin to trust them more and use their services repeatedly,” explained Heng.
Also, by supplying this inventory through international OTAs, it would naturally help market lesser-known destinations within Cambodia. By displaying diverse route options online, it could potentially encourage travellers to explore options beyond the key hotspots.
“Cambodia is a tourist country… so bus companies see that as an opportunity, especially when it comes to the tourism industry growing.
“We drive a lot of marketing in terms of tours and destinations. We work with young influencers locally to introduce new locations to the mass market. The bus companies essentially depend on our marketing strategy to drive sales to new or lesser-known routes.”
It also enables BookMeBus to help companies develop new routes, if the data reveals unmet customer demand for particular paths. In doing so, BookMeBus wants to encourage more domestic travel amongst local Cambodians.
For the international traveller, it is also about making destinations beyond tourism hotspots more accessible, encouraging deeper exploration and enabling a better spread of tourism dollars throughout the country.
To do that, foreigners must be able to trust the local transport systems that can get them from A to B, without any of the age old anxieties of getting lost, stuck or scammed in an unfamiliar environment.
“The overall aim is to make every province accessible for both the local and domestic market. Every province will have its own hidden destination, so once we set up the routes to these provinces, we can drive tourists to see those.
“We have the bus company market the routes, but [BookMeBus] helps with Facebook and Google ads.”
Despite having big goals, “expansion is not [BookMeBus’] biggest focus,” said Heng. “It’s mainly to streamline transport in Cambodia [and beyond].”
It entered Thailand and Vietnam organically, through the bus companies that BookMeBus works with. “The good thing about signing one bus company is it lets you enter three countries… they just need the technology and expertise to push them further.”
BookMeBus is also collaborating with local ferries to provide transport to nearby islands. The bus and ferry companies are now working together to sell packaged routes to give customers better options when travelling in-destination. As BookMeBus expands its partnerships in new markets, it would enable it to build multi-stop routes that would appeal to both local and international travellers.
However, convincing ground transport companies to abandon their IT legacy systems and adopt more comprehensive software requires a fair degree of persistence. Heng explained that it took a few years to convince companies to believe in their product.
“We got a lot of traction and sign ups in 2018 because we proved our ability. It took us three years to get them to trust us, because we had to graduate from a startup level.
“Small companies have no solutions from abroad that can fit into the context of the local market, so we’re able to customise the fit here.”
Images: Getty Images
