“Time for companies to build up tech stack, capacity management solutions in demand”
If there’s one positive outcome of the coronavirus crisis for Singapore startup GlobalTix, it’s that it has forced the company back to its roots – that of being a SaaS (Software as a Service) model to empower attractions and tours and activities providers.
With its marketplace down to zero bookings – its Gaadit marketplace was set up when suppliers wanted both a booking service with its tech solution – the company is in the process of “putting the Gaadit name into a coma”, said Chan Chee Chong, CEO and co-founder. “All new contracts will now be put under GlobalTix and the platform business and ticketing system will be folded into the one brand.”
He stressed that it wasn’t that the company was abandoning the marketplace model “but we prefer the SaaS model, it is much more stable”. GlobalTix owns and operates an e-ticket distribution platform connecting tourist attractions with online and offline travel agents across the globe
He also believes Covid-19 will force an accelerated digital transformation of the tours and activities sector and suppliers are looking for solutions that will allow them to restart faster and operate better, when travel recovers.
“This is the time for companies to build up their tech stacks and we are seeing that trend in general. A lot of attractions are looking to improve their tech, especially in emerging markets like Indonesia, but the smaller businesses – the boat tours, kayak tours – those are struggling to survive. Even when we waive solution fees till the end of the year, we can’t even onboard them. Their main concern is, how can we kickstart the business?”
He said he was seeing more enquiries for tech solutions around capacity management, tools that would allow attractions to restart operations with the new social distancing requirements and health and safety protocol.
“There are lots of variables being proposed out there. Some attractions are looking at capacity management every hour, some are looking at, we allow 100 people inside and then we have to monitor how many people exit – like the carpark monitoring system – and you can only get slots if you buy tickets.”
Another request is for contactless solutions and self check-in kiosks. “Some companies are asking if we can do contact tracing at turnstiles or kiosks. This would require hefty investment to develop and the other question is, how long will this situation last and what should you invest in at this time?”
The roots of GlobalTix, “it was a lot of pain”
Chan was working at Sentosa Development Corporation, after a stint at SilkAir, when he saw how backward attractions were in terms of ticketing. He had seen the switch from paper to e-tickets at Singapore Airlines and SilkAir and felt that it would only be a matter of time before attractions followed.
He was a bit too early though. He set up GlobalTix in 2013 with his brother Chan Chee Kong to help attractions digitise. “We were way ahead of time. It was a lot of pain.”
If it weren’t for his contacts at companies such as Singapore Airlines, Tradewinds and Luxury Holidays, GlobalTix would have had a very bumpy start. “When we first pitched to attractions, everyone would ask, how many tickets can you sell? That was when we realised we had no choice and we said, okay, we will buy tickets from you and convince you to buy our tech. That’s when we started the marketplace.”
For the first few years, the marketplace dominated the business and eventually, in the last two to three years, as suppliers’ understanding grew of software solutions that could help their business, the company’s channel management and ticketing solutions got traction.
Asked why it chose the name Gaadit for its marketplace versus using the same name GlobalTix, Chan said, “We wanted to position ourselves as a neutral partner and we got a travel agency license for Gaadit. But you know what, no matter the company structure, it doesn’t hide anything. We should just have been more confident of our value add. It was a dumb move, we understand the mistake now and we are correcting it.”
He called it “coming full circle” for the company which raised S$2.6m pre-series A and S$12.5m Series A in November 2018 from Tin Men Capital. Remote work has also come easy for the company whose tech team is based in the Philippines, customer service in Indonesia and finance team in Malaysia. It has a core team of about eight in Singapore.
Hibernate and pivot – it sold more than 20,000 retail and f&b vouchers in two months
He acknowledges there are lots of other similar players like GlobalTix that offers SaaS solutions as well as a marketplace. “It depends on what the supplier is looking for because each one has strengths in different places and different geographies. I feel we are stronger in point of sales, in conversions vs customer acquisition and we have strong coverage in Asia with over 2,000 agents. There is no platform that covers the whole world and is good at everything.”
In particular, the Asia markets are hard to crack because of the different currencies and fragmentation. “You need a player who can solve hard local problems and offer local language support. When it comes to tech, it’s very hard when you are not speaking in a local language.”
GlobalTix has also had to cut costs to survive the long winter. “The way to survive is to hibernate. We let go 10% of our people – we have a total of 60 staff – and we took pay cuts. We were fortunate that we still had maintenance fees on which to survive with zero bookings coming in.
“The richer attractions are enhancing their tech at this time and we have earned some revenues but not enough.”
To survive, it took on projects such as building tourism-related websites and it started selling f&b and retail vouchers. “We never wanted to do vouchers in retail and f&b because it is so competitive but our value proposition to business owners is we drive people to your shops, we don’t do delivery. That resonates with the smaller operators and we partner with Grab and AsiaOne to sell vouchers on their platforms.
“In the last two months, we sold more than 20,000 vouchers, so it’s not that bad but it took a lot of resources. We will have to make a decision when travel returns if we wish to continue. The tech is the same, it’s the manpower costs.
“It is good business at the moment because businesses are desperate and talking to merchants is pretty easy. It feels easy at this time but will it be when things get back to normal?”
Chan said in many ways, Covid-19 is good for the startup ecosystem and for companies that have strong fundamentals. He recalled a time when “because of companies like WeWork, we found it very difficult to raise funds. Everyone said, B2B, you can’t grow and everyone was investing in B2C and chasing hyper growth.
“We broke even year one but investors weren’t interested in that – they said we were too conservative. That was the most common phrase I heard.”
• Featured image credit: Universal Studios Singapore
