Helping agents to profit more

Nishant Sadana, Director, Zapbooking, talks about his future plans, his brand’s USP and how information about the products is essential to lend credibility.

Zap Booking consolidates holidays like agents used to do. We bulk buy airline seats in advance by paying airlines at a reduced rate. We also contract with specific hotels where we enjoy the exclusive rate due to the commitment, volume and advance; similarly, we work for transport, visa and others. We are eventually able to package the whole holiday at a much lesser cost than a normal FIT holiday package that the agent creates by taking individual rates from the suppliers. On an average, we offer our products at a cost that’s about 10-20 per cent lesser than a normal holiday package. This further helps agents to make more profit and ensures quick turnaround, which means they no more have to work with different overseas vendors, visa, airlines separately. This can be done by coordinating with just one entity — us.

What is your USP? Why should agents pick you over other competitors?

We do not brand ourselves on ground, we let the agents choose the group name. This helps the agents retain their clients. Agents have this worry that they will lose their clients if the latter know where agents book their holiday from. Secondly, most fixed departures that operate in the market are based on fixed hotels and inclusions. If we force a specific category and inclusions to our passengers, it is always going to backfire. So, we have created this great system in which we are able to keep the cost low, along with giving option to passengers to upgrade their hotels and inclusions. This gives every passenger the ease of choosing what they want to do, where they want to stay and at a low price module. Also, there are many more points such as easy access, instant availability, good relations with suppliers, hotels and airlines.

How dynamic is the online business?

Indian consumers trust online information. To connect to your consumers today, you need to have all the information regarding your product published in detail. That gives it more credibility. If you don’t have the right information with a booking option on your site, you will lose business. But, I feel that the product that you have, should be such that it is used within the organisation, designed simply, and gives accurate information. Then, there is no reason why the product should fail.

What are your plans for 2014?

We want to invest heavily in technology this year to optimise the process and operations, both for external and internal use. Also, we will be diversifying, not in a different domain, but we’ll add more markets where we see prospects and where agents find it difficult to book and understand.