booking office

English

A booking office in Austria

Noun

booking office (plural booking offices)

1. (British) A place where tickets are sold, e.g. at a railway station or theatre.

   Synonym: ticket office

   • 2019 October, James Abbott, “Esk Valley revival”, in Modern Railways, page 78:

     The NYMR [North Yorkshire Moors Railway] runs the booking office in Whitby, selling national rail tickets alongside those for the steam services.

   • 2024 March 6, Dr Joseph Brennan, “England's booking offices of distinction”, in RAIL, number 1004, page 56:

     Traditionally, 'ticket office' seems to have been the preferred term in America, with Britain using the term 'booking office' (as an 1881 edition of The Railway Age Monthly and Railway Service Magazine explains). Today, the two are often used interchangeably (as the recent 'Save our ticket offices' campaign shows), with the term 'ticketing' perhaps capturing more of the point-of-sale transaction and issuing of tickets within stations.

Related terms

• box office (for cinema and theatre)

References

• “booking office”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.