Choosing a Payment Gateway for Your Travel Business
Everyone loves technology that makes our life easier. Digitization has shown us a whole new way of leading our lives. Businesses have benefited from digitization the most. This has transcended to various aspects of the business. Your customer enters your portal, looks around, gets what they want and buys it! Isn’t it so simple?
Your customer is not just looking for you online but is also buying from you online. Payment is the most essential aspect of your business. But can you imagine what happened without an efficient payment gateway? Can you conduct all your business in cash? Of course not. Your business needs to get on with digitization. Your customer wants the convenience of online payment and if you can’t give them that, they will take their business elsewhere.
As a travel business owner, you will want your customers to have an easy time while they are using your business. Not just for your customer but for all your business needs that require financial transactions, a payment gateway is very important.
What is a payment gateway?
Payment gateways authorize online payments. Upon receipt of payment, the payment will be approved or declined immediately by the system, and the funds will be transferred from the company to the customer. This makes financial transactions faster and simpler. Customers can pay for their purchase easily and the seller can get the funds faster.
Why does your travel business need a payment gateways?
Nearly all travel and tour companies operate exclusively online and therefore require a means for their customers to pay for the adventures they offer. The travel industry relies heavily on the ability to accept online payments.
With a powerful and secure payment gateway, your travel business can;
- Accept digital payments
- Connectivity with internet banking, credit cards, debit cards, wallets, etc
- A payment gateway allows users to pay upfront or buy now pay later (EMI)
- Have multiple payment options
How to choose a payment gateway for your travel business?
As a travel agent or tour operator, you have your work cut out for you. Any travel company has to manage hundreds if not thousands of bookings per day. There are other business-related operations that you are expected to run. Hence your business needs a reliable payment gateway to take care of your payment processing needs.
Here are a few things you should know before choosing a payment gateway
- They should have a high ratio of payment processing successfully without errors or issues
- Review the safety features they have
- Consider the payment gateway pricing policy
- They must have features to fulfil all your business needs
- They must have the ability to support international payments and currency conversion
- Carefully inspect the settlement policy for payments received online via the payment gateway
- Check their client list
- Consider the local laws
- Check the integration with the native finance structure (Banks, wallets, etc.)
Which is the best payment gateway for your travel business?
There are payment gateways that are best suited for certain locations or countries. If it only supports and accepts payment from one particular region, it may not be suitable for others. Depending upon where your business and customers are based here are some of the best payment gateways you can integrate with for your travel business.
Globally accepted Payment Gateways
PayPal
Paypal is a global eCommerce payment platform that helps businesses and individuals send and receive payments. They have democratized financial services, making it easier, more secure, and more affordable to move money around. PayPal is a global service that is available in 203 countries and supports credit cards like Visa, Mastercard, Citibank, American Express, etc.
Stripe
The Stripe cloud payment gateway platform allows you to accept and manage online payments anywhere. It offers great features like embeddable checkout, a custom UI toolkit, consolidated reports, and more, to make online payments easier, globally. Through Stripe, travel businesses can manage faster and smoother funds transfers. Stripe’s excellent security system helps monitor and avoid fraudulent transactions better. It is possible to manage revenue and do business worldwide with Stripe.
Middle East & Africa
Mashreq
Mashreq integrates seamlessly with your e-Commerce portal and enables you to accept Visa and Mastercard payments online. It lets your business handle financial transactions securely, swiftly, and easily. This payment gateway is perfectly suited for all your business needs in the middle east.
KNET
KNET is a Kuwaiti national company that provides electronic banking services to all the banks in Kuwait. KNET Payment Gateway accepts debit cards issued by all banks to serve their customers and merchants. KNET connects government, private users, and banks to facilitate electronic commerce transactions. They make transactions safe and easy for businesses.
CyberSource
The CyberSource payment gateway provides online payment services and fraud management for medium and large-sized companies. By using a digital-first approach, they help businesses accept payments across channels and geographies. Their safe, reliable payment solutions reduce fraud by combining innovation and security. They currently serve in regions including United States, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa.
PayFort
PayFort, founded in the United Arab Emirates provides payment solutions to customers across the Middle East through FORT, its payments gateway. Currently, PayFort is a part of Amazon. Through this platform, businesses of all sizes, including small and medium-sized enterprises, startups, government agencies, and large enterprises, can accept online payments. Through the integration of a payment gateway into their websites, companies provide their customers with a secure, easy means of making payments.
NetCommerce
NetCommerce, based out of Lebanon focuses on developing new services that empower online businesses. Their payment gateways are designed to provide users with a single source solution for their E-Commerce needs. With NetCommerce businesses will have complete, simple, and secure online payment services.
MyFatoorah
MyFatoorah is a payment gateway primarily operating in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the GCC. MyFatoorah payment gateway solution propels your business to greater heights. You can support your sales and payments activities on e-commerce platforms with MyFatoorah. They make it easier for business owners to build a successful eCommerce business while maintaining security.
MyGate
MyGate is one of the leading online payment gateways in Africa. They accept online payments, MOTO payments, recurring payments, and debit orders. Merchants don’t have to store credit card information because the company offers a tokenization system. Through MyGate’s enterprise payment gateway solutions, expert advice, and guidance, businesses can have faster and better financial transactions which are beneficial for their business.
Pallapay
Pallapay provides tools for the purchase and acceptance of cryptocurrency. Pallapay has developed the Pallapay Crypto Payment Gateway for online businesses and the Pallapay Crypto Point of Sale Machine for retail businesses. Businesses can get paid in cryptocurrency and receive the cryptocurrency in their wallets or fiat in their accounts, for the first time in the world, with zero fees. They aim to make payments simple and futuristic.
SNB AlAhl
SNB stands for Saudi National Bank. SNB AlAhli, is a Saudi Arabian bank. In April 2021, Samba Financial Group SJSC, formerly known as The Saudi American Bank, merged with NCB and NCB was renamed as Saudi National Bank. The SNB ePay platform provides users with a highly secure method of processing credit card and Mada debit card transactions over the Internet. Using SNB ePay, users can collect and process credit cards & Mada debit cards directly through their website.
India & APAC
CCAvenue
CCAvenue is an India-based leading Payment Gateway Service Provider, authorized to appoint Sub Merchants by Indian financial institutions. As a payment method, they accept Credit Card, Debit Card, Net Banking, ATM-cum-Debit Card, Digital and Mobile Wallets, Mobile Payments, and Cash Card payments from end customers in real-time. The payment gateways serve as a secure link between your website, the various acquiring banks, and the various issuing institutions.
Razorpay
Razorpay is a payments solution in India that allows companies to accept, process, and disburse payments. Among Razorpay’s supported payment methods are Credit and Debit Cards (Visa, Mastercard, Rupay, AMEX, Diners), Net Banking from top 50+ banks, UPI (Web Collect & UPI Intent), Online Wallets, EMI (Credit and Debit Cards), PayLater, and NEFT/RTGS transfers. It has robust security, is easy to use, and is widely available.
United States
ConnexPay
ConnexPay helps marketplace companies accept and issue payments. Headquartered in the USA, ConnexPay connects incoming customer payments directly with the outgoing payments to suppliers in Travel, Freight, Insurance, and Ecommerce marketplaces, agencies, and brokers. By linking consumer sales directly to supplier payments, ConnexPay de-risks and streamlines the payment process for brokers and marketplaces.
The above-listed are some of the best payment gateways and the regions where they are best suited. Your travel portal needs a powerful and secure payment gateway to give your business the best chance at profit.
Getting payment gateways integration for your travel portal is made simpler by OTRAMS Software. We can help you connect with all of the above-listed payment gateways and more. As a leading travel technology provider, we can help you build a powerful travel portal that has everything you need to create and establish a strong business and boost your profit.
