Cross-Border Payments in the Travel Industry

Why Cross-Border Payments present a challenge in the travel industry

• Exchange Rates: fluctuating and constantly changing for high-volume businesses, leading to unexpected costs for travelers and businesses.
• Regulatory headaches: The unique profile of each country’s banking sector is time-consuming and resource-consuming. 
• Payment Reconciliation: Matching payments to bookings is time-consuming, especially with multiple payment methods, countries, and language barriers. 
• Chargebacks: Transaction disputes from customers are time-consuming 
• Fraudulent activities: The nature of high transaction volume often means that spotting fraudulent activities takes much longer before being flagged.

The current and classic banking systems are not equipped to answer these issues, which is why we are seeing such a growing interest from CFOs in adapting stablecoins 📈

Solving Payment Issues with Stablecoins

Digital currencies could change the game for cross-border payments in the travel industry.

According to GlobalData, more booking platforms and hotels now accept crypto payments; luxury hotels like the Palazzo Versace in Dubai and Soneva hotels in the Maldives and Thailand have been among the first to take the plunge with several hard-hitting arguments:

• Fast and efficient payments
• No central authority
• Improved security, preventing fraud
• Easier payment reconciliation*

Adding to these arguments are these considerations:

The Blockchain’s decentralized nature makes it almost impossible for a single point of failure to compromise the entire system. Unlike traditional systems that store data in a central location, blockchain distributes data across a network. This is crucial as cybercrime increases, with notable attacks on big hotel chains like Marriott and Shangri-La.

Attracting a new generation of tech-savvy clients seems to be the bet of industry leaders like Travala and Berkeley Travel, both using cryptocurrency and blockchain to reward and engage travelers.

Additionally, blockchain technology can significantly improve payment reconciliation. With blockchain, every transaction is recorded in a transparent, immutable ledger, making matching payments with corresponding bookings easier. This reduces errors and manual work, speeds up the reconciliation process, and enhances accuracy.

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Additional Benefits of Blockchain in the Travel Industry

Beyond payments, blockchain offers several other advantages:

• Enhanced Loyalty Programs: More secure and transparent, allowing customers to easily earn, track, and redeem rewards across platforms.
• Smart Contracts: Automate booking, insurance claims, and other tasks, reducing the need for intermediaries and speeding up service delivery.

By adopting blockchain, the travel industry can boost operational efficiency, improve customer experiences, and stay ahead in the digital landscape.

Request Finance - the all-in-one solution that offers all the benefits of stablecoin cross-border payment!

With AP/AR management in both Fiat and Crypto and thanks to its crypto-accounting solution, the Request Finance platform makes it easy for travel industry actors to benefit from digital currencies' cross-border transactions with automated payment reconciliation.

Request Finance allows managing AP/AR in +170 countries through his time-saving, compliant, and efficient solution.

If you are interested in discovering all the advantages of our platform, it’s time to book a demo ✈️

Conclusion

In a nutshell, stablecoin cross-border payments significantly benefit the travel industry. They make transactions fast, efficient, and secure, tackling traditional challenges like currency conversion, delays, high fees, and payment reconciliation.

Integrating blockchain in loyalty programs and tokenizing data further are opportunities for better customer satisfaction and security. Smart contracts automate processes, cutting down administrative work and enhancing service delivery.

Request Finance solution gives access to travel industry actors to those digital currencies and all the advantages of blockchain technology

By embracing cryptocurrency payments and blockchain technology, the travel industry can overcome payment challenges and unlock new growth opportunities, ultimately improving the experience for travelers worldwide.

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Sources:

Unraveling payment processing challenges in the travel industry

The difficulties on what the travel sector face in the payments

Crypto revolutionising cross-border payments in travel and tourism