A trip making it out of the group chat is an achievement in itself- but a group chat making it out of a trip is another matter entirely...
When so many peoples’ funds are involved in the process of booking trips, it can be a highly frustrating process, leading to disagreements, and indirectly causing a poor user experience for your customers.
Whether your company facilitates these trips through flights and transport, hotels and accommodations, or group activities, split payments are one of the most vital secure payments solutions to incorporate into your eCommerce strategy.
Split payments remove the friction that makes the user journey so difficult when handling bookings for several people, streamlining what can be a negative experience that leaves the lead booker out of pocket.
Why do transportation, accommodation, and group activity companies need split payments?
There’s a reason why 30% of airlines are looking to invest in split payments in the next 12 months. This insight is from Cell Point Digital’s latest report, which outlines the key payment challenges faced by airlines. Incidentally, lacking multiple options for payment was highlighted as the top issue among these airlines- but why?
Why is this relevant?
The trend of splitting payments has already begun with Buy Now Pay Later- Group Payments, Multi Card, and Instalment Payments are the next innovation in line.
We have seen how quickly Buy Now Pay Later has become a fixture at checkout- and even a primary driver for payment success. If you fall behind in implementing more convenient ways to pay, you could end up with a spike in abandoned carts- and this doesn’t just apply to the travel and tourism industry.
The next wave of split payments innovations is here to bridge the gaps that are left by Buy Now Payer later through:
Group Payments- Where you can split the payment between different people
Multi Card Payments- Splitting the payment between multiple cards
Installment Payments- Where you can pay in installments, without incurring the debt associated with Buy Now Pay Later
What about group payments to split the payment?
Group payments are an especially good fit for trip bookings, as shown by how bookings for groups of over 8 have increased by 35% for luxury travel operator, Black Tomato.
In fact, as of 2023, ‘65% of people planning to travel in the next 36 months will be doing so with friends’. This will mean a significant portion of your customers will have the clunky user journey of making a group payment on a single card and chasing their friends for payment. Therefore, you risk losing them to failed payments or abandoned carts out of frustration.
Enabling Group Payments at the checkout allows groups of travellers to settle their individual shares of the flight, accommodation, or activity payments, natively in the checkout. The lead booker no longer must chase their friends for outstanding funds and the merchant gets fewer failed payments. We then settle the funds by an established deadline and pass them to the merchant.
Check out our Group Payment process. Or, if you have more specific queries about Group Payments and how they can help the travel and tourism industries to provide better user experiences, get in touch with the Hands In team.