Hotels

For online travel agencies, the payment provider you choose can impact everything from cash flow to reliability to acceptance and even profitability. Online travel agencies (OTAs) have many choices when it comes to payment solutions. Working with the right provider...

In the distribution battle between OTAs and hotels, a shift in mindset is starting occur. While hotels continue to encourage direct bookings, many are realizing that a strategic mix of various channels is the better answer to gain customers and...

Hotels and their travel agency partners can experience significant friction and costs when using invoice driven payments in intermediated distribution models. In fact, WEX’s latest proprietary research found that hotels specifically incur costs amounting to around 7% of the value...

Like many industries, the travel industry has its fair share of businesses that fail. In recent years and months, the airline industry in particular has seen a number of high-profile failures that have left travelers stranded and travel companies left...

The recently released 2019 U.S. Travel Trends Report from WEX and Mastercard reveals recent trends in the accommodation preferences of American travelers. According to the report, hotels continue to be the preferred choice of accommodation when traveling. 74% of those...

There’s a new breed of online hotel deals generating considerable buzz. How do these “twists on traditional practices” work and what do they mean for hotels’ relationships with online booking sites? We’ll look at two new programs—one rewards travelers for...

Hotels and OTAs are offering short-term rentals and Airbnb is listing hotel rooms. Why? This spring, Airbnb’s managing director for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Jeroen Merchiers, told a Skift Forum Europe audience,  “The concept of home sharing and staying...

Major hotel brands have been aggressively pushing their travel loyalty programs over the past few years. And, at the same time, Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) have rolled out new or improved rewards programs. Is all this effort impacting the number...

Since 2000, the travel industry has been discovering the benefits of Virtual Card Numbers (VCNs). Once described as “the future of travel payments,” now the future is here. VCNs are widely used throughout the travel industry, particularly for corporate travel -  and for good reason. The...

Hardly a week goes by without a major company announcing that their customers have been impacted by a credit card breach. The travel industry is far from immune; in 2016, a number of wide-spread data breaches affected the hotel industry,...