Associations, companies and experts expect 2022 will be a good year for business travel. Let’s see what the numbers say in this regard.

The pandemic outbreak brought the entire travel sector to an abrupt stop. Since then, a lot has been said regarding when pre-pandemic levels are expected to be reached in one of the most important businesses in the world.

Leisure travel was the first sector to recover. According to data from Exceltur, the travel sector in Spain closed 2021 with 88 billion EUR of activity; about 7.5% of the GDP. In this year 2022, sales are expected to reach 135 billion EUR. In fact, some companies in the travel industry are already seeing pre-pandemic turnover figures.

What about business travel?

Even though technology has allowed us to remain connected to the world, the truth is that business travel is still a requirement for companies. In contrast to some opinions expecting this segment would disappear, experts predict that 2022 will be a pivotal year for the business travel segment.

According to the latest survey conducted by Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), 75% of travel managers believe the volume of business travel in 2022 will be the same or a bit higher than the previous years. Likewise, specialized companies also expect their income to increase this year. The same association expects a full recovery to occur in 2024, when pre-pandemic levels will be exceeded.

What do corporate travelers want?

Employees still prefer face to face meetings. In fact, according to this report by Amadeus, 75% of travelers have indicated they expect to travel in 2022.

Even though the use of the word “bleisure” (a blend of the words “business” and “leisure”) had become fashionable, the trend is now evolving towards using “workcation” (a blend of the words “work” and “vacation”). This means that business trips will be longer and business meetings will be combined with wellness activities. In fact, 1 out of every 3 corporate travelers indicate they would like to include a leisure activity in their business trips, as explained by the BBC.

In this sense, data from Amadeus has shown how the duration of the trips have increased compared to 2020.

Technology for users but also for companies

Technology has also played a key role throughout the pandemic. Contactless, artificial intelligence, online check-in, VCCs and even online communication are now essential tools for companies in the travel industry as well as travelers.

In this sense, companies in the travel industry have had time to analyze and restore their internal processes to become more efficient once the business volume returns to normal levels. For this reason, new technological solutions are being adopted, such as Payment Manager, to digitize and optimize processes that were highly inefficient before the pandemic such as B2B payments. Companies have understood that in order to emerge stronger from the crisis, they need to apply technology to all their processes and not only to those related with the end user. 

In conclusion, the sector is ready. Everything indicates that 2022 will be the year when we will stop reporting negative figures and begin reporting corporate travel growth prospects in green. Business Travel will return in full force.

La entrada Outlook of business travel in 2022 se publicó primero en Voxel - Blog.

The solutions provided by Diners Club Spain have been especially designed for Business Travel and payment to suppliers in the travel industry.

Voxel partners with Diners Club Spain to continue promoting B2B payments in the travel industry. Thanks to this partnership, Diners Club Spain is now part of baVel Pay’s payment providers. From this point forward, all companies connected to baVel Pay’s Payment Manager can begin using the services provided by Diners Club Spain without needing to carry out a specific integration.

Diners Club Spain for the travel industry

Diners Club Spain has designed two products to meet the needs of companies in the travel industry and specifically, of travel agencies and intermediaries.

Through products such as Travel Account and Travel Services Account, Diners Club Spain offers a payment method that allows grouping all payments of a company that has been issued a card, providing an easy way of reconciling accounts, more detailed data and a safe payment via its VCN (Virtual Card Number) solution. In addition to offering greater liquidity and being limited to paying for travel services, these two Diners Club products have specific characteristics depending on their use.

The Travel Account can be issued in the name of a travel agency, as long as it is used to pay for travel expenses related with a specific client company. This way, the Travel Account offers a wide travel insurance coverage for all travelers from said company in cases where their travel or lodging has been purchased using this method of payment.

The Travel Services Account of Diners Club Spain is designed for players in the travel industry and is registered with IATA as an alternative transfer method. With permission from the airline company, the Travel Services Account can be used for purchasing IATA airline tickets. This way travel intermediaries can centralize all purchases related with the travel services they intend to sell to their clients using a single method of payment.

On the other hand, baVel Pay is a platform created by Voxel that creates a channel, other than the bookings channel, to transmit B2B payments in the industry. baVel Pay is capable of automatically articulating a sophisticated flow of B2B payments from start to finish, without errors or frictions and taking advantage of an ecosystem of payment providers such as Diners Club Spain. baVel Pay’s Payment Manager is the first payment manager on the market to implement the Open Payment Alliance standards defined by HEDNA and HTNG.

Benefits for companies in the travel industry

Nonetheless, companies in the travel industry that decide to use the solutions provided by Diners Club Spain through baVel Pay may benefit from:

• Longer payment deadlines and consequently, increased cash-flow.
• Cross-border payments that are cheaper and free of exchange rate commissions.
• Maximizing sales without the risk of IATA limiting your payments. Lower guarantee requirements by IATA.
• Automatic articulation of a sophisticated flow of B2B payments from start to finish without errors or frictions.
• Rules engine capable of choosing the best method of payment for each transaction.
• baVel Pay value added services: e-Billing and Bill-back, reconciliation, electronic settlement and full reporting.
• Omni-channel and automatic payment distribution.

If you wish to start using these services, please contact us at info@voxelgroup.net and our team will get back to you and explain how we can help.

La entrada Diners Club Spain is the new payment supplier added to baVel Pay se publicó primero en Voxel - Blog.

Xavier Ginesta, Chairman at Voxel, will present the most innovative modules of baVel Pay on the Travel Forward Stage.

Voxel, the leading e-invoicing and B2B payments company in the travel industry, will present the latest developments in B2B payments in the industry at the World Travel Market in London.

Xavier Ginesta, Chairman at Voxel, will present the paper “baVel Pay. The B2B payments revolution” on the Travel Forward Stage. This presentation will share Voxel’s vision of the radical evolutionary leap that B2B payments will undergo in the travel industry in the coming years and will present, for the first time after the recent acquisition of Troovo, the new functionalities and features of the baVel Pay platform.

In particular, the paradigm shift that the introduction of the Payment Manager and the adoption of the Open Payment Alliance standard will bring in terms of innovation, digitisation and automation of B2B payment processes in the sector will be analysed.

B2B payments in the international travel sector

Over the last decades, distribution in the travel sector has grown exponentially, giving rise to the emergence of new players and intermediaries. This growth has been made possible mainly thanks to three key technologies: the internet, VCCs and Channel Managers.

However, the management and distribution of B2B payments has not evolved at the same pace and the process for managing them has become increasingly complex, inefficient and a source of errors and losses for companies in the sector.

Following the recent acquisition of Troovo by Voxel, baVel Pay has added new and innovative functionalities and features. baVel Pay is now able to automatically orchestrate highly sophisticated end-to-end B2B payment flows, from retrieving the booking from a GDS or Channel Manager, choosing and generating the optimal payment method for that booking and taking out exchange rate insurance that mitigate exposure from exchange rate fluctuations; to distributing the payment directly to the hotel, obtaining and reconciling the electronic invoice, settling the payment and finally sending a reconciliation report to both the payer and the payee. Fully digital end-to-end business process execution without any manual intervention and therefore frictionless.

The baVel Pay service is articulated through the first Payment Manager in the market that implements the Open Payment Alliance standards defined by HEDNA and HTNG.

Commitment to innovation and digitalisation

For the first time, and coinciding with the first face-to-face edition of the WTM after the pandemic, Voxel will also participate in the event with a booth (TT738). Located in the Travel Forward, the event dedicated to technology and innovation within the World Travel Market, Voxel’s proposal will focus on boosting innovation in the field of B2B payments in the travel industry and contributing to the recovery of the travel sector through digitisation and automation of back-office processes.

La entrada Voxel presents the new baVel Pay platform at WTM se publicó primero en Voxel - Blog.

La entrada Efficient management of B2B payments in the travel industry se publicó primero en Voxel - Blog.

The Open Payment Alliance (OPA) keeps moving along. Recently, the two main sectoral associations that promote the OPA, Hospitality Technology Next Generation (HTNG) and the Hotel Electronic Distribution Network Association (HEDNA), have published the phase II comprehensive specification and schema messages document.

These new specifications support, among others, the commission payments from a hotel to its booking partner. Thereby, the OPA moves along the simplification and automation payment processes, also in the indirect distribution channels. OPA’s main goal is to standardize the way payments are processed today, improving operational efficiencies for hotels while providing a better check-in experience to travelers.

B2B payment channel today

Payment innovations have not evolved at the same pace as some other technologies, such as the distribution channel, due to their complexity. With many forms of payment used in the indirect sales channel, each one of them comes with different payment and processing instructions which ultimately lead to inefficiencies and overhead costs.

These inefficiencies may include:

• Use of a technology that does not always support the transmission of payment data required for compliance and regulatory reasons
• Post-booking reservation changes that can not be communicated.
• Limited or non-existing technology to transmit payment instructions.
• Loss of revenue or extra costs due to manual and legacy processes and technology.

In order to find a solution to all these problems, the Open Payments Alliance first defined the role of a ‘Payment Manager,’ a solution that transforms payable data into instructions to automatically initiate and settle payments between two parties. The Payment Manager is a solutions exclusively designed for the travel industry that allow travel companies to streamline payments. The payment instructions that travel between a provider and a client through the Payment Manager specify the terms for which payment for a given booking should be executed, and enable the flow of money into the intended recipient’s bank account, among many others travel industry specifications.

Voxel boosts the OPA through the Early Adopters Program

Voxel has developed the first Payment Manager on the market following the specifications set by the Open Payment Alliance. And, to drive adoption of this standard among companies in the industry, Voxel has launched two Early Adopters Programs in collaboration with Mastercard.

Nowadays, more than 20 companies in the sector, including Palladium Hotel Group, Hotusa Group, TUI Iberia, Odeon Tours, Juniper and MTS Globe are already developing the connection to the baVel Payment Manager and will soon begin to exchange payment instructions.

Are you interested in discovering the new B2B payment channel for the travel industry? Drop us a line at info@voxelgroup.net

La entrada The Open Payment Alliance moves along: phase II specification published se publicó primero en Voxel - Blog.

The Open Payment Alliance (OPA) Early Adopters Program continues to attract leading firms in the travel industry. After the success of the first edition, with the participation of 20 companies, Palladium Hotel Group and Grupo Hotusa are now the first to join the Early Adopters Program 2.0. This second edition will likewise be sponsored by Mastercard.

Palladium and Hotusa are now among the pioneering group of companies in the industry that will soon begin to use the B2B payments standard defined by the Open Payment Alliance. To that end, both companies will develop their connections with the baVel Payment Manager, the first functional Payment Manager on the market. Once the technical connections have been completed, both companies will start managing optimized payment instructions.

Palladium and Hotusa will thus join the companies in the first Early Adopters program: Methabook, TUI Iberia, 3FullStep, Grupo CDV, Odeon Tours, CN Travel, SHL, World Destination, Webbeds, Protel, Prestige, Bentour Reisen, Hoist Group, Caribbean Atlas, Juniper, Nixi, Hoteldo and MTS Globe.

Benefits of the Open Payment Alliance

The Open Payment Alliance sets a new specific standard for the travel industry, with the aim of solving one of the biggest difficulties in the business: B2B payments. In general, businesses in the industry have put substantial resources into improving processes related to the end customer. However, the back-office processes are still highly manual. Consequently, errors, discrepancies and chargebacks are very common.

The OPA proposes creating a new channel, decoupled from the reservation channel, to manage all payments through the Payment Manager, equivalent to the Channel Manager in the reservation channel.

The benefits of adopting this new B2B payment channel are manifold for both suppliers and purchasers:

• A specific channel guaranteeing execution of all terms agreed in a payment instruction—method of payment, currency, moment of collection, etc.
• Automation, optimization, traceability and transparency throughout the process.
• Reduced manual work in administration.
• Greater scalability of the business.
• Different forms of payment, according to the supplier’s and the client’s needs. Access to different payment partners through one single integration.
• Automatic settlement and billback.
• PCI Compliance. Legal compliance in all countries where the company operates.

For travel suppliers such as Palladium and Hotusa, the benefits of adopting the OPA have been heightened in 2020. Amid the crisis caused by the coronavirus, insurance companies have quickly withdrawn credit from all operations in the industry. Consequently, hotels and other tourist suppliers have had to run the risk of non-payment. The OPA allows risk to be shared among all the members of the value chain through the traceability and transparency of the entire process.

Early Adopters Program 2.0.

The Early Adopters Program 2.0 remains open to all businesses that wish to innovate in their payment processes. Any companies that take part in this edition will benefit from a discount on integration costs.

For further information, please write to us at info@voxelgroup.net or click here. Your Voxel contact person will also be pleased to help.

La entrada Palladium Hotel Group and Grupo Hotusa join the Open Payment Alliance Early Adopters Program se publicó primero en Voxel - Blog.

La entrada This is how the adoption of the Open Payment Alliance in the travel industry evolves se publicó primero en Voxel - Blog.

La entrada baVel Digital Summit: Payment Manager Early Adopters Program se publicó primero en Voxel - Blog.

La entrada Pre-paid rates, VCCs and the Payment Manager, keys to mitigating the risk of non-payment in the hospitality industry se publicó primero en Voxel - Blog.

La entrada Melià, World2Meet, Abreu, Logitravel and Prestige join the Open Payment Alliance through Voxel Groups’ initiative se publicó primero en Voxel - Blog.