Leading travel management platform used by thousands of travel companies now offers European payment methods within its platform, reducing abandoned cart bookings from European travellers
AMSTERDAM, NL – WeTravel – leading travel management platform used by 5,000 global travel companies–announced today it’s the first multi-day travel booking and payment platform to offer integration with European payment methods iDEAL and SOFORT to allow the travel businesses that use its platform to convert more sales from European travellers, who increasingly expect to pay for tours by local payment options.
For all European travellers that book a tour through WeTravel clients, iDEAL and SOFORT will automatically display as payment options at checkout, in addition to the business’s existing, full-stack payment options like credit card, SEPA and bank transfer. The addition of the local payment methods for European travellers will help global travel companies convert sales from the region as credit card adoption is low and the use of local payment methods is rising.
“We want to break the payment barriers that thousands of travel companies fight against when operating at a local and global scale, opening possibilities to not only attract global customers, but convert bookings quicker and at a larger scale through emerging payment technologies and methods,” said Johannes Koeppel, WeTravel’s co-founder and chief product officer. “In our research from thousands of travel companies that transact with nearly one million travellers through WeTravel, we found that the more flexible payment options are available at checkout, the more likely a traveller is to purchase a tour – we’re aiming to reduce any controllable impacts to abandon cart at checkout.”
WeTravel’s Annual Booking and Payments Report, which surveyed hundreds of non-WeTravel clients in 2022 to discover 2023 booking trends, found that 75 percent of travel companies consider local payments the top-emerging payment choice for their travellers, compared to credit card and ACH payments, which were the most-used payment options in 2019 (pre-pandemic comparison).
WeTravel’s integration with iDEAL and SOFORT will enable its clients to:
- Automatically and instantly offer local payment methods to European travellers; whenever a European traveller enters a client’s checkout process, the payment methods will automatically appear as a payment option at checkout
- Smooth the end-to-end process for travellers, with the bank selection page directly integrated into the payment method
- Use the integration to reach-out to European travellers, who may have abandoned cart, to convert lost bookings and increase sales
For their travellers, the integration is seamless in the booking process. At checkout, listed with other payment options, if either iDEAL or SOFORT are selected, the traveller will be routed to a pop-up log-in window, for the payment to automatically process. If SEPA is selected, the traveller will input directly in the WeTravel interface the required information to automatically process the payment.
“We exist to empower travel companies, our clients, to not only operate successful businesses, but to grow their businesses. Now offering local payment methods in Europe–and with plans to expand into new regions–we’re doing just that, we’re helping businesses grow,” said Koeppel.
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales.
She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.
