Digital payment adoption is exploding, adding complexity to the intricate web of payment methods travel providers must accept. For airlines and hotels, payment orchestration—technology that sits atop existing payment infrastructure and integrates with multiple providers — allows for connections to a wide range of payment methods without the need to build direct connections to each one.
For travel suppliers, payment orchestration solves the challenge of the complex and time-consuming process of building and maintaining those connections every time they wish to add another payment option along with the tools to manage those connections—handling chargebacks or preventing fraud, for example. For travel buyers, it helps ensure that their preferred payment methods, such as virtual cards will be accepted as technology evolves.
“The challenge … is building up enough of the ecosystem and staying on track, because there’s new payment methods coming out almost on a daily basis, if not multiple on a daily basis,” said Damian Alonso, senior vice president of commercial and partnerships at Outpayce, the payments arm of global travel technology and distribution company Amadeus.
Of course, using a third-party for payment orchestration rather than managing payment connections internally brings an added cost to suppliers. Additionally, some of the payment orchestration technology providers are not travel industry specialists, so many airlines are still fine-tuning their strategies in managing their payment channels.
Adoption Growth
UATP One, the orchestration solution UATP launched in 2022, is now used by approximately 20 airlines, said Wendy Ward, chief marketing officer at UATP. Meanwhile, Canadian fintech Nuvei—a major player in the payment orchestration space—said it’s supporting more than 700 payment methods and serving airlines directly, as well as through orchestration platforms that use its acquiring and alternative payment method capabilities, according to Damien Cramer, the company’s senior vice president and head of travel.
Cramer said payment orchestration adoption “accelerated significantly” after the pandemic due to a desire for greater control over credit risk.
“Orchestration emerged as a way for airlines to manage this complexity, while diversifying both acquirers and payment methods,” he said.
Outpayce was founded in 2023, but Amadeus’s journey toward payment orchestration long predated that, said Alonso. The platform’s reach has steadily grown since its launch, serving more than 100 airlines and integrating close to 1,000 hotel properties into the orchestration logic. It connects to more than 400 payment service providers, including alternative payment providers, said Alonso.
Meanwhile the International Air Transport Association’s solution, IATA Financial Gateway founded in 2018, continues to expand its global reach as airlines’ knowledge of payments grows, said Hoy Chin Yeoh, director for industry financial services at IATA.
Payment orchestration’s growth stems from a need for risk diversification—spreading risk exposure across acquirers and reducing failure points—and to enhance local payment enablement, he said.
“As air traveler demographics diversify, supporting region-specific payment preferences is no longer optional,” said Cramer. He noted that payment orchestration drives higher approval rates by dynamically routing transactions to the best-performing acquirer while also reducing operational complexity and accelerating time to market by eliminating the need for direct integrations.
Barriers to Adoption
Companies still face resistance due to existing acquirer agreements and trust issues, experts said.
“If an airline has a co-brand card, those tend to be very long agreements. [Those with] payment service providers acquiring these tend to be five- to 10-year contracts,” said Ward.
In addition, the control GDSs have across various sales channels could also be a barrier, said IATA’s Yeoh. Meanwhile, a reluctance to hand over control of a critical infrastructure layer is also an obstacle, as payment orchestration requires trust and alignment on long-term vision and capabilities, according to Nuvei’s Cramer.
A Bet on Emerging Tech
Outpayce is working on AI-based refinements to accommodate consumer habits, including the possibility that AI agents could coordinate multiple payment methods used in a single travel transaction.
“How do we help our customers make sure they can use multiple … forms of payment in a single booking, and making sure that’s all encompassed in a single transaction?” said Alonso. “How do we combine and choose the order of preference for that traveler without the traveler necessarily having to do that on a case-by-case basis … and then [have] agentic AI orchestrate that experience?”
Outpayce currently uses machine learning to analyze data and route transactions, he added.
Other companies in the space are also exploring how AI can improve payment flows. Use of AI for real-time routing of transactions, along with analytics, represent use cases that are “gradually starting,” said IATA’s Yeoh. Meanwhile, UATP is building an “enhanced layer” that will encompass AI and machine learning and aim to drive payment orchestration efficiencies, Ward said.
The rise of new payment methods—including virtual cards, “buy now, pay later” services and account-to-account methods—is putting pressure on orchestrators to expand their integration capabilities.
“Payments are moving very quickly… you’re talking virtual cards, tokenization, stablecoins and companies that have historically [been] very conservative are getting more technologically advanced to go into these newer forms of payment,” said Ward. “It’s exciting, because there’s opportunity.”
Alonso declined to give a timeline for agentic AI’s launch but noted AI’s progress has far outpaced expectations.
“It’s a bit of a crystal ball,” he said. “Maybe four or five months ago, none of us really knew about agentic AI, and we see the adoption of how quickly AI has interrupted our lives…technology is evolving rapidly, and we obviously need to make sure we’re on top of it.”
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