Online railway ticket bookings jump to 14.02 mn in March

Online railway ticket bookings grew almost three-fold to reach 14.02 million units in March 2014, showing that people are increasingly adopting the digital medium for travel planning.
"The online booking of railway tickets increased from 3.63 million in March 2013 to 14.02 million in March 2014, registering a year-on-year growth of 286 per cent," Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB said in their monthly tracker.
While online booking of railway tickets grew phenomenally, bookings of air tickets declined marginally during the reported period.
Air tickets booked online in March 2014 were 1.31 million as compared to 1.40 million in the corresponding month last year.

"The increased growth in the segment is good news for the online travel industry. With Indian online travel market showing exponential growth in last few years due to increased awareness, this is an assertion that now consumers are using the digital medium with much ease and are more confident to make online transactions," IAMAI President Subho Ray said.
The monthly tracker also found a y-o-y growth of 154 per cent in online user visits to branded apparel category.

"While branded apparels witnessed 16.08 million online user visits in March 2014 as compared to 6.34 million user visits in March 2013, the footwear segment registered 15.51 million online user hits in March 2014 as compared to 6.30 million user hits in March 2013," it said.

IAMAI said the monthly Internet tracker is based on web audience measurement (WAM) data captured from various relevant sites, and encapsulates online usage for e-tailing, online travel and vertical classifieds.
The tracker further indicates that 59.48 million people accessed various e-tailing sites.
"There were 2,714.28 million page views in the category," it said.
The user reach for job and matrimonial websites is 31.18 million and 19.86 million, respectively with 1,209.48 million and 403.20 million respective page views, it added.