Travel Payment System Integration: The Key To Optimal Efficiency

This blog series aims to offer travel businesses effective solutions to some of your most common challenges. Here we delve into how to integrate all your technological systems to create optimum efficiency seamlessly. 

Running a successful travel business is no small feat. And in this competitive landscape, with technology and automation transforming the travel industry, as a tour operator, you need to be at the top of your game. 

How do you achieve this? By using a platform that prioritizes travel payment system integration. 

For optimal performance, the platform you use should encompass a seamless booking (and payment) experience, track payments, schedule automated payment reminders, and integrate with your CRM, mailing software, and accounting system. 

Anything less, and travelers will swiftly bounce off the page and find an alternative travel agency. 

With that said, in this article, we will discuss the importance of integrating all technological applications to create efficiencies and help you to focus on what matters - growing your business. 

Compatibility of booking and payment systems & technology in travel payments 

When you integrate all the technologies you use, you ensure a more manageable set of daily back-office duties. It reduces the time spent on maintenance tasks and admin related to accepting bookings, managing trips, and relaying vital trip information. 

Seamless technology integration gives you more time for strategizing, developing new travel products, and promoting your company. 

The intricacies of a well-constructed booking flow 

1. Automated booking experience 

An efficient booking flow translates to clients being able to book and pay for travel experiences, without requiring the need for back-and-forth communication or being sent a payment link. 

On the topic of payments, any reputable payment platform should also offer security for bank and credit card payments. This is even more important when your payment platform is integrated with other online tools. 

When travelers find the booking and payment procedure cumbersome, they’ll move on to another travel website instead. To prevent this, they must be able to book and pay for trips and tours when they want to, right from your website, to minimize inconvenience. 

2. Tour availability input

A well-constructed booking flow should also incorporate managing your trip availability. The major benefit of this feature is that it allows you to avoid the risk of overselling any tours. 

WeTravel’s trip builder tool allows you to set the availability to one of three options: 

• Unlimited
• Limited 
• Available

This is an effective way to enhance your clients’ engagement and satisfaction with your online travel service. 

3. WeTravel’s ‘ask a question’ feature

Travelers sometimes require more information than what is presented on the web page to be enticed to book a trip. With an innovative feature like WeTravel’s  ‘Ask A Question’, you can provide them with two ways to contact you.  

All they have to do is click on the ‘Ask A Question” virtual button. After that, they can contact you directly on the trip page, or by contacting you directly from your WeTravel profile page. 

And the best part? This is a lead magnet feature, which means that for them to be contacted by one of your representatives, they need to add their contact information. This is vital information to grow your business by communicating effectively with clients. 

4. Counteract abandoned carts 

Concerned about the number of people abandoning their carts? Our ‘Abandoned Cart’ feature helps our WeTravel Pro clients recover abandoned bookings with ease. 

Any prospective client will receive a follow-up email 24 hours following their attempt (and abandonment) of booking a trip. This will assist in encouraging them to continue and complete the checkout process. This is crucial for the success of a booking flow. 

5. WeTravel’s download-a-brochure feature

A brochure is one of the most convenient ways of communicating your travel offerings to your travel clients. It can give existing clients more information about their trip, or help undecided clients make that final decision.

WeTravel’s download-a-brochure feature makes this easy. Simply embed a ‘Download Brochure’ virtual button into your webpage using our brochure widget. It’s as easy as that. Your travel clients can download your trip brochure without leaving your website. 

Your travel brochure will be available to your clients as a downloadable PDF document on all of your published trips. Not interested in this feature at this point? That’s okay, you decide when you need it. You can always enable or disable it on your WeTravel account. 

It is also a lead magnet, which (as we mentioned above), is highly beneficial for obtaining contact details and building an extensive database. 

Having a smooth and effective booking flow in place assists in the overall efficiency of your systems. 

How automation simplifies your booking management tasks

Processing bookings and payments

By using the right platform for your travel business, much of the booking and payment process can be automated. 

Automation reduces the amount of physical admin you have to do and speeds up the entire booking and payment experience. This has benefits not only for your team’s efficiency but also for your company’s public image, and your existing and prospective clients' engagement levels. 

It also ensures that no errors are encountered, and best of all, that data security is intact. 

And with a nifty tool like WeTravel’s payment reminder feature, no payment will ever go amiss. 

Communicating with clients

Clear and timely communication is essential for a positive client experience and the functioning of any travel agency. Automating basic communications related to the booking and payment process saves you time while improving the client experience. This is especially useful for sending automated payment reminders. 

WeTravel allows you to communicate with clients in several ways. Message an individual client directly, or send a broadcast message to all of a tour’s participants. 

You can schedule these messages for later, and even edit the pre-scheduled messages should circumstances change. 

Effective communication has never been easier. 

Uploading travel documents

You’ll need to collect various travel documents from your clients when they book tours through your online travel business. This may include passport information and/or signed waivers. 

Automating this document collection process is yet another way to cut down on the admin while streamlining the booking process for all parties. 

WeTravel clients can accept bookings, collect travel documents, process payments, and even edit bookings all on one platform. Our WeTravel pro users can upload documents with a wide range of file types. Each client can upload up to 5 files, and 10 MB per file. 

Customers can manage their uploads at any time on their branded dashboard. 

The need for effective software integration

The concept of software integration is simple. It is the glue that binds all your preferred systems/platforms for anything from lead generation, managing a client base, marketing, and communication to CRM, mailing software, accounting software, and more that you need for your day-to-day processes. 

Integrating all your tools makes everything run harmoniously together and eliminates the need to sign in and out of multiple sites. 

WeTravel’s integration with Zapier and public APIs

At WeTravel we understand the need for software integration for your most important duties. There’s no need to change the way you already handle your daily admin tasks. Our external APIs allow our WeTravel Pro clients to integrate their other online tools through our handy Zapier integration. 

This feature lets you connect your WeTravel account to over 2000 other web services. This means that you can continue to enjoy the convenience of WeTravel’s booking and payments platform while still using the other online tools you know and love. Find out more about this feature, here.

Final thoughts on travel payment system integration

Travel payment system integration goes beyond simply using technology in travel payments. It allows you to streamline the booking flow, effectively communicate with clients, and take advantage of the latest secure payment processes; all while continuing to use the tools your tour business has come to rely on. 

The secret to travel payment system integration is choosing the right platform. One that not only understands exactly what you need for optimal efficiency as a tour operator, but also offers features that ensure effortless travel payment processes, and a lot more, like WeTravel.

Our platform offers true compatibility of booking and payment systems with your other management tools, saving both you and your client's time. What are you waiting for, request a demo today!