A few days after Cineworld announced the removal of all booking fees for its filmgoers nationwide; people seem to be happier than ever with this decision and most of them claim this will positively affect their attendance in the future.
Cineworld is the first big cinema chain to remove all booking fees and offer a further 10% discount on tickets bought online. This pioneering decision has clearly put the chain in an advantageous position in relation to its main rivals.
Most of the general public are satisfied with the news and they hope this measure will encourage other companies to do the same. Some of the comments are:
“Hopefully Odeon will follow suite. If not, then my £7 will go to Cineworld”
“Why can’t all companies just calculate their prices to incorporate all costs? Booking fees for gigs should be next. We shouldn’t be charged any extra fees when there is plenty of profit within the ticket price. And if there isn’t, then they just aren’t pricing it properly”
“I think this is a great initiative. Besides, it will surely help to keep the queues down a bit”
Despite it already dropped fees in Scotland last year as part of a trial period, the chain was still charging a card handling fee of 70p per ticket, up to a maximum of £4.20 per booking at most of its cinemas in England and Wales.
Cineworld recently took the decision to axe all such charges for customers as a result of a research which showed that over three quarters (77%) of all cinemagoers would feel encouraged to book online if the booking fees were removed. Besides, more than 4 in 5 customers (86%) stated had said that discounted tickets would encourage them to pre-book. In effect, it has worked.
Most of our interviewees have stated that they will choose Cineworld as priority next time they wish to watch a film. To be eligible for the online discount, customers simply need to sign up to mycineworld. For more details, click here.
—-
First published on 19th March 2012 (Edinburgh Napier News). Link
Natalia Rodriguez 
Leave a Reply