Google rolls out its Internet bus campaign

Seeing success in Tamil Nadu, the internet search giant Google is now looking to teach the people of Karnataka, how to use the internet, how to browse web, how to make web search, how to use Google search engine, how to compose and send email, how to browse maps or track stock market trends. Google India has rolled out its Internet Bus as part of its campaign to educate people about using internet.

On Monday, Google India set off its Internet Bus, from Kolar, a backward district, about 100 km from the country’s tech hub Bangalore, to tour in Karnataka. The custom-built Internet bus is slated to run through 15 towns of Karnataka, to campaign for the use of internet for information, communication, entertainment and education. Google’s Internet bus will campaign for internet use for next 50 days.

Google’s Internet bus will tour through towns including Kolar, Mandya, Mysore, Bengaluru, Hassan, Arsikere, Shimoga, Bhadravati, Chikmanglur, Tumkur, Chitradurga, Davangere, Hubli-Dharwad, Belgaum, Gadag and Hospet. The bus equipped computers with internet connection will show videos to people, explaining how the basic knowledge of internet can help making their everyday lives simpler. The Internet bus will target the people with limited knowledge about internet. The Internet bus will provide information, audio as well as video, in English as well as local Kannada language.

Prasad Ram, the head of Google India research and development has explained that the Internet bus project has been designed to educate the people, particularly the young people, about use of the worldwide web for information, communication, entertainment and education.

Google India has decided to run its Internet bus in Karnataka, after the success of its two-month tour of 17 towns across Tamil Nadu, from December to February.

Ram told that the Internet bus tour in Tamil Nadu was a big learning experience for the company. The company witnessed huge success in TN, where people showed keen interest to know about the Internet. The experience took the company to the conclusion that awareness is a key challenge in the growth of the internet in India.

Ram said that the experience of TN has made the company to launch its Internet bus campaign to another state – Karnataka. According to Ram, in addition to educating people about popular web services like email, Google search, maps, and videos, the Karnataka Internet bus campaign will also focus on teaching people how they can use mobile phones to access info from internet, and the educational info will be provided in local languages.

Travel portals cash in on bus bookings

As luxury bus travel remains untouched by the overall slowdown in the travel industry, a bevy of travel companies are cashing in on this opportunity by getting into luxury coach bookings or expanding their already existing portfolios.

Industry experts say that in the past six months, a host of online bus portals, including TicketGoose, TicketKaran, Customerneedz and TravelYaari have sprung up, while biggies like Makemytrip, Yatra and Ezeego1 have got into the business. Sources say travel portal Cleartrip is also evaluating getting into online bus bookings.

While a large part of private intercity bus travel in the country is unorganised and does not throw up consolidated data, a number of online and offline bus booking operators, reservation system enablers and consolidators, including Redbus, Mantis and travel portals like Makemytrip, estimate that travel in luxury coaches has increased by around 25 per cent over the past year.

There are around 2,000 organised private bus operators in the country, running a total of around 20,000 luxury buses. At around Rs 500 per seat and an average occupancy of 75 per cent, the total industry turnover comes to about Rs 12,000 crore.

Western India-based company Mantis, which runs an internet reservation platform for bus bookings, as well as an online bus portal called Travelyaari, has aggressive expansion plans.

Currently we have a live reservation platform wherein we sell inventory bus seats for some operators online. On the other side, our platform is also used by travel portals like Makemytrip, Ezeego and our bus portal, Travelyaari. By graduating to a consolidator, which means having access to multiple such platforms, we will add another 20 operators to our system, which has 40 operators already, said Arvind Lama of Mantis.

Mantis has a total inventory of 25,000 seats per day and this is estimated to increase by more than 50 per cent.

Mantis is also enabling interselling of tickets between different bus operators, in line with code sharing that happens in case of airlines. In this case, if a passenger has access to a bus operator that does not have connectivity in the some route, the passenger can buy a ticket and avail the services of another bus operator through the platform.

Redbus, which is one of the largest bus bookings sites in the country, estimates its revenues to have increased six times from Rs 5 crore last year to Rs 30 crore in 2008-09.

Speaking about the scope for industry growth, Phanindra Sama, CEO of Redbus says, In India we have two luxury coaches for every 1,000 people in the country, while China has 10. This gives an idea of the scope for growth in the country. Overall, the private bus operators are much stronger in the West and South region, since connectivity is easier. The North has inter-state taxation issues, which is why most of the interstate operations are run by the government, said Sama.

The entry of a lot of travel portals in the country would only mean that the passenger gets added amenities.

Makemytrip, which was the first to get into the bus booking business, has seen a 100 per cent growth in the past few months. It is planning to offer bundled packages, which would include luxury coach travel and hotel bookings. The portal, which has an inventory of 8,000 buses offered by 500 bus operators across 4,000 routes in 14 states, is also in talks with state governments like Karnataka to enable bookings of their bus services on their portal.

The positive impact is seen in bus sales as well. Luxury bus major Volvo said that its sales have seen a brisk increase in recent months.

We have landed an order for 150 luxury buses priced between Rs 72 and 87 lakh from the state governments of Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, apart from private developers, said a spokesperson for Volvo.

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