By Jean-Christophe Lacour, SVP & Global Head of Products, Outpayce
The global travel and tourism industry contributes over 10% of global GDP, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council. But for airlines, travel agencies, and hotels, getting paid remains a challenge. Legacy payment systems, fragmented providers, and rising cross-border costs have created a complex payments landscape. While consumers have embraced digital wallets and other modern methods, much of the industry’s infrastructure hasn’t kept pace.
This is why more travel companies are turning to payments orchestration. Rather than integrating providers manually, an orchestration platform connects and optimises payments across providers and geographies, enabling centralised management and smarter decision-making for each transaction.
Initially focused on streamlining connections to acquirers, fraud tools, and payment methods, orchestration now allows companies to optimise transactions by cost, performance, risk, and experience. Orchestration is reshaping travel payments, and here’s why this shift is so important.
1. Payments are centrally managed
Travel businesses often rely on complex, outdated systems that are difficult to maintain or adapt. Payments data is scattered across multiple providers in various formats, making it difficult to gain meaningful insights or implement changes quickly.
With orchestration, travel companies can manage everything in one place. Dashboards offer a unified view of payment performance, enabling real-time adjustments and centralised partner management. If acceptance rates fall in a specific region, companies can immediately identify and resolve the issue.
A centralised system also allows travel companies to implement or adjust rules globally—whether to apply Strong Customer Authentication more broadly or route transactions to more cost-effective providers—all from a single interface.
2. Minimising reliance on individual payment service providers
Relying on a single payment service provider (PSP) increases risk. If that provider fails or underperforms, it impacts conversion and revenue. But maintaining multiple PSP relationships manually is resource-intensive, especially for global brands.
Payment orchestration enables easy integration and switching between multiple acquirers and PSPs. Outpayce, for example, recently introduced the travel industry’s first payments marketplace, providing travel companies with real-world performance data to guide partner selection.
Using an API-first approach, this model also simplifies onboarding new partners. With access to transaction-level performance data, travel companies can better predict costs and acceptance rates, improving customer experience and reducing payment failures.
More than 100 airlines have already adopted modular, API-supported payment architectures through Outpayce—a clear sign that the industry is moving toward more flexible, efficient solutions.
3. The customer experience will improve
Payments are a key part of the traveller experience. A clunky or failed checkout can cost a sale, and not offering preferred or local payment options can limit global reach.
Orchestration enables a localised experience at scale—supporting local methods, currencies, and languages. Malaysia Airlines, for instance, reduced payment errors by 8% by expanding local options and routing transactions to better-performing acquirers via Outpayce’s platform.
With orchestration, travel companies can respond quickly to regional preferences—activating or deactivating payment options without major development work. This agility is essential in a fast-moving global market.
4. Optimising for cost, revenue and risk
Payments typically represent 2–3% of a travel company’s revenue. Orchestration can help control costs while balancing performance and security.
Travel companies can use real-time performance data to select providers best suited for each transaction. A first-class booking, for example, may warrant routing through a premium provider with higher acceptance rates and stronger security—even at a higher cost.
Dynamic rules also allow routing based on favourable terms or currency processing rates, helping protect margins while offering customers local payment experiences.
Because Outpayce’s platform understands the nuances of travel payments, it enables optimisation not just for cost, but also for revenue assurance and risk management. For instance, companies can avoid redundant fraud checks on transactions already subject to Strong Customer Authentication.
5. Enhancing security and fraud protection is easy
Travel is particularly vulnerable to fraud. Loyalty abuse, stolen cards and chargebacks are common risks. Without effective tools, fraud either causes revenue loss or adds friction to the user experience.
Modern orchestration platforms integrate fraud prevention directly, supporting multiple providers and real-time rule application. This includes dynamic 3DS triggers, tokenisation to reduce PCI exposure and one-click bookings.
With built-in customisation, travel companies can tailor fraud strategies to match their business model and customer expectations—without sacrificing ease of payment.
A mature payments network for travel
The travel industry now has access to mature global payment networks and smart orchestration platforms that unlock their full value. The next frontier now probably lies in advanced data intelligence—applying AI and machine learning to further refine smart routing and decision-making.
By optimising for cost, acceptance and security in one integrated system, travel companies can deliver seamless, efficient, and localised payment experiences—meeting traveller expectations and driving growth across borders.
