Last year was bad for the tourism industry, especially for airlines. The companies say revenue drop by almost 80 percent year on year as the pandemic kept customers at home to curb the infection from spreading.
With the rollout of vaccines beginning of this year, there is a possibility that air travel will be starting soon. Pymnts reported that payment orchestration firm CellPoint Digital CEO Kristian Gjerding told Karen Webster that airlines feel pressured to come back with an upgrade to the entire customer experience.
Airlines, according to Gjerding, are aware that payment optimisation is needed right now. Reducing friction in checkout flows would increase overall conversions and make the customer travel booking experience more pleasant.
He went on to say that the entire industry needs to move to a smarter, younger, and more scalable infrastructure. The transformation is a process that payment optimisation can assist with.
Payments used to be seen as an “operational layer” by companies, but they are now being discussed in executive committee meetings as part of a broader customer experience debate.
Inside companies, it has also evolved into a multi-team initiative. These efforts aren’t solely responsible for the sales and marketing department or the IT or finance departments. Organisations are beginning to recognise that these teams must cooperate when it comes to payments because it is a mechanism that meets all of their strategic goals.
They must also be able to complete the mission quickly. Gone are the days where introducing new payment functionality could take anything from six months to a year. Everyone is working on a new timetable that is simply quicker.
Consumers are increasingly desperate to escape their living rooms, so there is a lot of pent-up demand. For travel companies, this is the positive news and the light at the end of the tunnel, according to Gjerding.
However, attracting customers will be a more significant challenge. Tourists nowadays are different from a year ago as they have become highly digitised in their habits and expectations. These customers would become loyal to the merchants that are most able to support their shifted lifestyle.
He concluded that creating a smooth commerce journey is shaping up to be a critical competitive capability, particularly as airlines look for a way to get their businesses back on track.
