In February 2023, Sophie Baron, an engineer and mother of three teenage daughters from France's eastern Ain region, felt an irrepressible urge to visit the Johannes Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. But what she thought would be an impromptu getaway turned into a rigorously organized stay. After rushing to book the very last tickets, she secured entry to the must-see Van Gogh Museum and Anne Frank House, "fought" to get a round-trip plane ticket and booked a half-decent hotel room without being too fussy. Once there, just when she thought she had it all planned out, she was disillusioned on the very first evening. "As we could not find a table for five at a restaurant, we were forced to skip dinner. The next day, we had the same problem. We fell back on the only place available on a Saturday evening: The cheeses sold at the Gouda Museum."

Even if the world has recently put our sense of improvisation to the test - pandemics, war, climate change – we're still being forced to book our vacations and leisure activities well in advance. Whether it's a shepherd's hut on Corsica's GR20 trail, a movie theater ticket, a day at the beach, a visit to Machu Picchu or a blood donation, "it's become a pain," lamented François Briat, a 48-year-old engineer from Lyon. "It's filled with scams and traps. The internet has turned into a marketing monster." Exhausted by "anxiety-inducing" messages – such as "only two rooms left" – he makes sure to delete his browser cookies to divert the attention of booking platforms that abuse push-selling (pushing the product toward the customer) and pull-selling (pulling the customer toward the product).

"For me, the SNCF is the worst," said Michel Blanchard, a former journalist with Agence France-Presse (AFP), annoyed by the fluctuating fares charged since 1993 according to demand, left unchallenged by the very modest competition. "Early on, you could swap your ticket up to three days before departure with a €5 penalty. Today, it's €19 per journey, less than six days [for domestic and international TGV inOui]! It's a real scandal." "Trains are hell," agreed Brigitte Martin, a retiree from the French education system. "Unless you book five months in advance or leave at 5:45 am, it's unaffordable!"

Ticketing, a top priority issue

That being said, online booking can sometimes also ease concerns. "It provides a guarantee," said Marc-Olivier Sebbag, the general delegate of the French National Cinema Federation. "In the cinema industry, it's becoming a common practice, especially in big cities, where people want to be sure of getting a seat for the film they've chosen because of the large number of spectators, heavy traffic jams and so on. This practice comes mainly from Great Britain and northern European countries." The latest trend, inspired by theaters, is to choose your numbered seat in advance.

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