Executive summary
The luxury hospitality space has experienced significant changes over the past decade, as its role in the larger travel industry evolves. Providers are shifting their business models, processes, and systems to adapt to the global digital economy, appeal to a broader array of clients, and operate more efficiently.
With the market opportunity and digital landscape shifting, it has become essential that luxury accommodations providers move to more digital processes to save costs, streamline operations, improve payment security, and maintain a tailored client and agent experience throughout their entire journey. With this in mind, leaders in the luxury hospitality industry are now adopting solutions to expedite and digitalize all aspects of their experience and offerings.
As you implement new technologies and shift towards systems that can manage many aspects of the booking and planning processes, it is important that you carefully consider the payment component. The payment experience has multiple stakeholders within the travel ecosystem, particularly as consumers and businesses are increasingly expecting fast, intuitive, and familiar payment options. You understand the importance of identifying and implementing convenient, secure, and cost-effective payment infrastructure. This recognition is leading companies to meet consumer and agent expectations and streamline internal processes while also reducing costs and winning more business opportunities.
Recently, Flywire has found that the majority of luxury hospitality businesses face some combination of the following major hurdles with their existing payment options for accepting client and agent payments:
Ability to process transactions in foreign markets
Complexity related to the FX fees are encountered by both luxury accommodations providers and their clients. Challenges include being able to process payments in foreign currencies and with localized payment methods and reducing fees on both sides of the transaction.
