Redefining ski tours in the UK and beyond
Ski Solutions’ journey began over 35 years ago when two friends identified a unique market gap for telephone-based ski travel agencies in the UK. Fast forward to today, the company has cemented its position as the UK’s leading tailor-made ski tour company, operating as part of the wider Active Travel Group, the UK’s top activity based tour operator.
Driven by a passion for creating unforgettable holidays with an unparalleled service, Ski Solutions’ bespoke ski packages encompass top chalets, hotels and apartments across Europe and North America. Their ski holidays are so highly regarded that they’ve even earned mentions in prestigious publications like National Geographic, The Independent and CN Traveller, in addition to appearing regularly in the travel sections of the UK’s quality press.
Ski Solutions was keen to partner with a payment provider who deeply understood their business needs and the complexities of travel payments. Let’s dive into how emerchantpay helped Ski Solutions to devise a personalised payments strategy, allowing them to optimise their conversions and revenue.
The challenge
With the European travel industry facing dual shocks from Brexit and COVID-19, it was paramount for Ski Solutions to work with a payments partner who could confidently navigate these shifts and support them in delivering an excellent customer experience. Alongside this, Ski Solutions faced complex payment conditions, with limited support. This prompted Ski Solutions to partner with emerchantpay, leveraging our high-quality and customisable payment solutions to smoothly run their business amidst changes in the travel payments environment.
"Due to challenges faced by a number of other travel clients, but unrelated to Ski Solutions, our previous provider wanted to impose terms that would have hindered our business growth and day-to day operations. It wasn’t sustainable for our business to operate this way, which is why switched to emerchantpay, who offered a more streamlined and personalised approach to payment processing.”Ian McIlrath, Managing Director of Ski Solutions
emerchantpay’s all-in-one payment solution stood out to them, offering not only the payment processing infrastructure needed to accelerate their business but also provided travel-specific advisory services from payment specialists with extensive experience in the travel industry. The combination of both these features helped Ski Solutions ensure it was well-placed to navigate the dynamic travel landscape.
"emerchantpay’s robust payment solution aligned perfectly with our business needs, allowing us to seamlessly process payments and remain agile in an ever-evolving industry."Ian McIlrath, Managing Director of Ski Solutions
The solutions
The ski tour operator opted for emerchantpay’s payment processing solution specifically due to its comprehensive and personalised features. With over 20 years of experience, emerchantpay also had a deep understanding of the common payment pain points of travel operators, providing high-quality, dedicated support from setup to completion.
“The team was very approachable and eager to help whenever needed. It’s typically expected that there will be some initial complications when you move to a new provider, however, this was not the case with emerchantpay. Their responsive and diligent approach made the whole onboarding experience smooth.”Ian McIlrath, Managing Director of Ski Solutions
Ski Solutions currently uses emerchantpay’s payment solution for accepting payments, both over the phone and through the integrated reservation system payment portal. The PCI compliant and user-friendly features have allowed the team to process payments frictionlessly for customers. Alongside this, our extensive payment services provided the team with access to detailed transaction reporting tools, giving them vital insights into the performance of payments and pinpoint areas for improvement.
Ski Solutions currently uses emerchantpay’s payment solution for accepting payments, both over the phone and through the integrated reservation system payment portal. The PCI compliant and user-friendly features have allowed the team to process payments frictionlessly for customers. Alongside this, our extensive payment services provided the team with access to detailed transaction reporting tools, giving them vital insights into the performance of payments and pinpoint areas for improvement.
“Having a clear idea of how transactions are performing day-to-day and unveiling key trends is a vital part of running a business, and emerchantpay has given us just that. Their reporting features have provided us with a holistic roadmap of the transaction journey, which has helped us identify valuable data for business growth.”Ian McIlrath, Managing Director of Ski Solutions.
The impact
emerchantpay’s over the phone payment solutions have helped Ski Solutions to smoothly navigate payments within what has been a turbulent travel sector, while providing a reliable and friendly point of contact for payments advice and assistance.
“emerchantpay’s solutions are responsive to business needs and fit for purpose, with a friendly team in place to provide support as needed. Whenever we’ve faced an issue on the rare occasion or have queried something, the team’s always there to help and has an excellent and speedy response rate.”Ian McIlrath, Managing Director of Ski Solutions
How emerchantpay helped Ski Solutions
- 14% increase in approved sale transactions from 2022 to 2023
- 18% increase in approved sale amount from 2022 to 2023
Additionally, we’ve helped them to reduce unnecessary card processing costs and streamlined their financial management with favourable payment terms. This has helped Ski Solutions to focus on the most important thing – growing their business.
“The travel industry is a highly competitive and volatile space, with companies typically not having a lot of room to absorb unnecessary costs. emerchantpay offers a fair and transparent pricing structure that has helped us to better manage our processing costs, allowing us to reallocate more funds towards the expansion of our business.”Ian McIlrath, Managing Director of Ski Solutions
Given the travel industry’s fast-paced and highly competitive nature, adopting strategies to stay front of mind is crucial to Ski Solutions’ ongoing growth. Providing an exceptional payment experience is a key part of this, supporting conversions and allowing Ski Solutions to build a loyal customer base. emerchantpay’s commitment to crafting a bespoke and seamless payments strategy for Ski Solutions’ unique client base has helped them to elevate their payment experience, while reducing payment friction.
“Customers want to be able to process card payments quickly and securely. They don’t want to be wasting time trying to find another payment card because the one they used wasn’t accepted. emerchantpay has helped us optimise our card acceptance rates by providing us with the solutions and support to devise a tailored payments strategy, encompassing the unique needs of our customers.”Ian McIlrath, Managing Director of Ski Solutions
Furthermore, emerchantpay’s dedication to providing efficient payment solutions and high-quality customer support have helped Ski Solutions to strengthen their payments strategy and maximise their revenue. We look forward to helping them to continue building on this success with our continued partnership.
Get in touch with emerchantpay’s travel payments experts today and maximise your profitability.