Travel agencies, operators, hotel chains and OTAs had to become payments experts very quickly throughout the pandemic. In the first lockdown alone, air traffic to and from the United Kingdom dropped 98.3% between February and April 2020. Not only does this number reflect a significant drop in travel, but it also indicates the gravity of what travel businesses had to overcome – and still are.
In fact, it is safe to say travel specialists haven’t had time to breathe outside of managing the impact from lockdown changes, international travel restrictions and a high influx of cancellations and refund requests.
Soaring into 2022, global travel projections are showing a much-welcomed uptick. Statista projects the number of scheduled passengers boarded by the global airline industry will reach 3.43 billion people in 2022, up from 2.2 billion in 2021 and 1.8 billion in 2020.
Reflecting on the numbers, we can see the runway for growth is clear. Accumulative year-on-year increases averaged around 200 million new global passengers between 2015 and 2020. However, between 2021 and 2022, this figure is set to surge to 1.2 billion new global passengers. While we can’t pinpoint the exact point when the influx will slow down, pre-pandemic estimations for 2020 came in at just over 4.72 billion global passengers. What is clear is that travel merchants are in for a significant increase in activity, bookings and new policies created over the pandemic, both on the consumer-facing and supplier sides of travel.
The volatility generated in the travel sector from constant back and forth with refunds, rescheduling and voucher manoeuvres led to multiple operation adjustments and resilience to keep doors open and travellers engaged. With the release of our Travel’s new performance agenda report, we’re looking at how travel merchants can understand and leverage their payments performance for the long-haul.
John Harris, VP Travel at emerchantpay, says: “Our sights are always set to the horizon at emerchantpay when it comes to payment performance.
"With booking numbers on the rise, we’re looking at ensuring the longevity of growth by fine-tuning a payment offering initially designed to survive a pandemic to now thrive in 2022 and beyond.”
We’ve narrowed it down to seven key areas that travel merchants can work on today to reach higher acceptance rates, reduced fraud cases and a more traveller-friendly payment experience. We cover how to reduce decline rates, how routing domestically can save on costs, how to efficiently manage chargebacks and more.
These areas are critical points for optimisation based on our 20 years of experience in the travel payments sector and thousands of one-on-one conversations with our customers.
"Ultimately, we want our clients’ payments to be as automated for them and their suppliers as they are seamless for their customers,” John adds.
“Many travel companies faced difficulties with their acquirers throughout the pandemic. At emerchantpay, we were able to continue boarding new travel businesses and help them alongside our existing clients ensure they could still settle funds and pay their suppliers on time.”John Harris | VP Travel at emerchantpay
Travel's new performance agenda
Optimise your payments offering with emerchantpay
At emerchantpay, we’re building new relationships with travel merchants to help them optimise their payments for success.
We are passionate about providing flexible and customer-centric payment solutions that enable businesses to navigate the new travel landscape and adapt to shifting expectations. Consumer demands have changed across every aspect of the travel experience, requiring heightened security and hygiene standards. Payments are no exception and businesses need to offer payment methods their customers are familiar with to encourage brand trust and loyalty.
If you want to learn more about simple ways to pay suppliers, 300+ ways for customers to pay for a localised experience and favourable settlement terms, get in touch with our team to discuss your options.