Digitalising Cultural Experiences

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the arts and culture sector has been massive. So many historic venues were forced to shut their doors for a period as local and national lockdowns stopped visitors from entering their establishments. The sector has therefore been forced to rapidly pivot its way of working to adapt to the new world it finds itself in. Digitalisation has been a major part of this, with many historical institutions investing in their online presence and digital space for the first time. The tourism industry as a whole has been greatly impacted by a loss of income through the pandemic, but online ticketing and digital sales has allowed the journey back to normality to commence. As part of the transformation of the industry into the post-Covid world, Tiqets, backed by private equity investor HPE Growth, has become a global market leader in making online ticketing accessible to all venues.

Before the pandemic, even major and massively popular historical venues did not have digital presences that matched their stature and reputation. They relied heavily on the “old-fashioned” methods of ticket purchasing that now seem like relics of the past. This includes tourists queuing up outside the venue and purchasing tickets from physical booths to gain entry to the venue. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a packed queue of up to a hundred people is no longer a feasible solution, so venues have moved towards a model that removes the need for physical queues by moving the entire process online. It is in this niche that Tiqets finds its market offering. As cultural institutions, both for-profit and non-profit alike, do not always have the digital teams and resources to make the required changes, Tiqets falls into a space that offers value to both businesses and consumers.

The main challenge for the sector has been in designing a user experience that works for customers across the world. This includes both the translation of the online presence into the world’s major languages to allow tourists from all over the world to access the content in a language they can fully understand, and also the provision of payment services that can be accessed by all visitors as well as locals. For example, even between the Netherlands and Belgium, neighbouring countries that both use the Euro, we see a difference in the payment methods that would be used to make purchases online, between Bancontact, Maestro, and iDeal. Especially for venues that may attract visitors from abroad, namely China, India, and the US, services like Alipay, UnionPay, and PayPal should also be considered. In providing these services as part of its offering, Tiqets supports by taking some of the burden of digitalisation away from the organisations that it partners with. In addition to this, the building of good interfaces and user experience is something that cultural organisations struggle with. Tiqets also steps in to support on that front, bringing their partnered venues’ websites into the 21st century to make the consumer’s journey that much simpler.

The digitalisation of ticketing is by no means unique to cultural bodies or the arts, as all kinds of venues have been made to rethink their strategies. A huge shift towards online and specifically mobile bookings is ongoing, with the national and local regulations regarding social distancing going some way to support this change. The proportion of tickets purchased and accessed online has more than doubled, with Tiqets enjoying 200% growth over in the US in comparison to pre-pandemic levels. Online adoption in general accelerated over the pandemic as both consumers and venues demand Tiqets’ user experience and ease of use. Venues are also now becoming more aware that the benefits of working with a partner like Tiqets to provide their services is much more than the potential cost of running a similar service in-house. Part of this is the visibility on other platforms such as Google Maps, Apple Maps, and even WeChat. Consumers can book at a venue, through a service, from a platform, and for the customer it is all through one tap of a button. A strategy that is now coming into vogue in Europe but is already of some popularity in East Asia is the use of QR codes outside venues to allow visitors to book tickets or reserve time slots at the physical venue itself. This is exemplified in the introduction of QR codes on the Beijing metro that allows riders to pay for their trip online, and to buy tickets to enter the Forbidden City, China’s second most visited tourist attraction. With the introduction of proofs of vaccination and health forms across Europe, consumers are becoming more used to the use of QR codes as tickets and passes, but the continent still lags behind East Asia in this particular method.

Moving into the future, platforms will continue to expand their offering, with some beginning to consider the prospect of cross-selling between their partnered venues. For example, a platform that is partnered with multiple venues in a city can offer a packaged set of tickets for the venues to be used in a weekend trip. This can even be expanded to include a full travel package, with platforms like Tiqets able to offer the tickets to venues as part of a package holiday in a way that existing package holiday firms cannot. The online experience will continue to improve, as venues become more and more aware of the impact that their online presence and website user experience can have on the customer’s decisions. As lovers of innovation, investors like HPE Growth are keen to see what new ideas the segment can bring to the table to make the process better for both vendors and consumers.