Win every booking with smarter payments for OTAs

A seamless checkout experience is crucial to convert browsers into bookers, and payments are a key part of that. 

Travelers want payment options that they prefer. In fact, 74% will abandon a booking if their preferred payment method isn’t available. Speed and familiarity also matter. If the payment process feels slow or unfamiliar, 37% of potential bookers will drop off. Adyen’s Hospitality and Travel Index 2025 found that 59% of consumers consider a seamless experience from booking to checkout important when choosing a hotel. Despite this demand, 31% of hotels report they cannot accept payment options like Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) and digital wallets such as Apple Pay, indicating a gap between guest preferences and available payment methods. This highlights the importance for OTA businesses to invest in diverse, secure and seamless payment options to enhance the guest experience and reduce cart abandonment. 

Local acquiring in high-value outbound markets 

Let’s say a traveler in Tokyo is ready to book a vacation in Santorini. They find the perfect itinerary on your platform, but at checkout, their preferred local payment method isn’t available and they abandon the booking. Moments like this are lost revenue. To truly drive conversions to and  To optimize OTA profitability through boosted conversions and drive revenue increase travel margins, it’s not just about offering payment options, it’s about offering the right ones. 

That starts with your local payment method mix. Having a payment platform that seamlessly integrates popular local methods, whether it’s bank transfers in Germany, or Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) in Australia, makes all the difference. By offering these options directly at the checkout, platforms like Adyen help OTAs meet traveler expectations when it matters most. 

Cross-border simplicity 

Cross-market simplicity is extremely important in travel. Many online travel agencies fail due to high cross-border fees or low acceptance rates. A modern payments platform changes the game by processing payments through local acquiring in key outbound markets. This reduces costs and improves acceptance rates, smoothing the path from booking intent to confirmation. 

Smarter checkout experiences 

Today’s travelers expect speed and simplicity, especially on mobile. When checkout forms are clunky or require repeated data entry, drop-off spikes. In fact, 70% of travelers book on their smartphones, so a mobile-friendly checkout process is crucial to optimize OTA revenue. 

Smarter checkout experiences, personalized and tokenized, can pre-fill relevant payment information, removing unnecessary steps and reducing drop-off. Tokenization also enables one-click repeat bookings and supports secure, compliant storage of payment credentials. 

Integrating a platform that prioritizes mobile-first design and tokenization, like Adyen, enables OTAs to reduce friction and build loyalty. Every seamless checkout is a step closer to not just winning a booking, but winning them again and again. 

Convert more with MCP

Another powerful conversion driver is Multi-Currency Pricing (MCP), which lets travelers choose their preferred currency at checkout. This not only improves the customer experience, by giving travelers price clarity and confidence, but also unlocks a new revenue stream for OTAs through foreign exchange (FX).

Global growth is a top priority for OTAs. Expansion brings payment complexity, such as managing dozens of payment providers, juggling fragmented pay-in and payout systems, staying compliant across markets, and reconciling payments manually. All of this can take a toll on both time and margin. 

For instance, did you know that 36% of enterprises lose at least a full day per week on global payment operations? Some require 4+ full-time staff just for reconciliation. And as 75% of OTAs explore new revenue models like subscriptions or loyalty-based membership, that complexity only deepens.  

These inefficiencies aren’t just inconvenient, they directly impact your bottom line. More tools mean more handoffs, more risk, and more operational drag. 

Automate reconciliation and reduce operational drag 

For OTAs, profitability hinges on mastering a complex financial equation: seamlessly accepting payments from global travelers while efficiently paying a diverse, global network of suppliers. When these pay-in and payout flows are managed on disconnected systems, the result is operational drag, manual errors, and revenue leakage. To optimize OTA profitability, payment infrastructure must evolve to automate these complex processes on a single platform.

This is where a unified payment platform like Adyen transforms operational drag into a competitive advantage. By managing the full payment lifecycle – from traveler pay-in to supplier payout – on one system, you eliminate data silos and manual work.

• Achieve true end-to-end reconciliation: The core benefit lies in the automatic linking of an incoming traveler payment to its corresponding outgoing supplier payout. This single source of truth eliminates hours of manual spreadsheet work and provides a real-time, accurate view of your net position on every single booking.

• Simplify diverse payout workflows: Instead of manually managing different payment instructions for each partner, you can automate payouts through each supplier's preferred method. Whether issuing a secure, single-use virtual card tied to a booking for easy matching, or sending a local bank transfer, the process is centralized and simplified.

• Reduce the burden of compliance: Built-in compliance features like 3DS and automated Know Your Customer (KYC) checks for onboarding partners are integrated directly into the workflow. This removes a significant administrative burden, de-risking expansion and freeing up your team to focus on growth, not paperwork.

As OTA margins tighten, the focus is shifting from booking conversion alone to the strategic management of working capital. Yet, many OTAs are held back by rigid processes and slow cash cycles, leaving supplier relationships strained and funds tied up. According to a Forrester TEI Report, an estimated $707 billion in working capital is trapped in delayed receivables across the travel industry, limiting reinvestment and slowing growth.

This is where smarter payments for OTAs can make a measurable impact. Modern platforms help OTAs accelerate their cash flow, reduce payment friction, and turn their payout process into a revenue driver.

• Unlock working capital and accelerate payouts: Move funds faster between pay-ins and payouts. With flexible funding and treasury features like overdrafts, you gain more control over your float, enabling you to pay suppliers promptly without locking up your own capital.

• Generate extra revenue streams: Payouts can become more than a cost center. By strategically issuing virtual cards to suppliers through Visa and Mastercard travel programs, you can unlock a new revenue stream from interchange fees, directly improving the margin on each booking. They become a strategic lever to optimize OTA profitability and reinvest in growth.

• Turn idle funds into an asset: As a licensed and regulated bank, Adyen is uniquely positioned to optimize your cash flow further. We can offer an earnings credit on your overnight cash balances, turning idle funds from settled bookings into incremental revenue and adding a new dimension of value to your treasury operations.

In today’s travel market, every booking needs to work harder. It’s no longer enough just to attract travelers, OTAs must optimize every stage of the journey, from conversion to reconciliation to payout. 

That’s where smarter payments for OTAs come in. By modernizing the payment stack, travel platforms can remove friction at checkout, reduce operational drag, and unlock working capital. 

The bottom line? Payments aren’t just plumbing. They’re a powerful lever to optimize OTA profitability, accelerate growth, and scale globally with confidence.