With online payment taking the center stage, businesses nowadays have been shifting their gears and embarking on a journey to go the online way. The trend has now engulfed the hotel industry and hoteliers have been using online payment systems extensively. Whether the customers come through Direct Booking through the Direct Booking Engine for Hotels integrated into your hotel website or through the various OTA booking, online payment powers all these platforms. Let us take a look at different forms of payments which hotels, hoteliers, online travel agencies and direct booking platforms use.
- Debit Cards: This is a plastic payment card that can be used instead of cash while carrying out the purchasing processes. Issued by banks all over the world and extensively used for online payments, debit cards are primarily issued as Maestro, Visa Debit, and Debit MasterCard. In hotel industry the payment made through debit cards accounts for nearly 37% of the total online payments. Payment made through debit cards will be intimated to the respective email id through a payment confirmation mail.
- Credit Cards: These cards are based on promises and commitments made by the card holder to the respective banks. Same as debit, these cards are already facilitated with amount the moment you get a credit card for your needs. The distribution area for both credit and debit cards are the same i.e., 37% of the hotel bookings. Credit cards have been on the rise since the inception of online payments and are expected to surpass debit cards while making online payments. The usage of credit card is directly proportional to the increase in cost of the purchase which means that more the amount, more are the chances of credit card being used.
- Net Banking or Online Banking: Net banking has the second largest share in the market dominated primarily by debit cards and credit cards. It has a fair share of 24% of the hotel booking space. With the advent of internet, online banking is on the rise and is predicted to overtake debit and credit cards to be the most used payment system all over the world. Online banking has become the most preferred choice for countries opting to go cashless and a major payment component for hotel industry.
- Others: Wallets and digital payments come under the category, “Others”. These forms of payments contribute a mere 2% of the total payments made for direct hotel booking. Apart from credit, debit and net banking digital payments are very much sought after, though they have a lesser market share.
Managing these payments from the different OTAs and Direct Booking can be a tough task but can be made easy if you opt for a Channel Manager for Hotels which keeps an eye on your inventory and manages it form a single dashboard without you having you to log into each of the OTA accounts separately.
So, go for this so that you get a seamless experience when it comes to booking and the different medium by which you will get paid.
