Amadeus Acquires Voxel to Bolster Travel Payments Services

Amadeus has acquired Voxel, a B2B payments solution provider for the travel sector.

The purchase, announced Monday (March 11) adds Voxel’s eInvoicing and B2B payments tools to the Amadeus portfolio, while helping corporate customers by further automating aspects of the business travel experience like reservation, payments and expense management.

“Payments are present at every stage of the travel experience. To make the experience of travel better, it’s crucial we ensure smooth, integrated and even invisible payments,” Decius Valmorbida, president of travel for Amadeus, said in a news release.

“We now have a combined team of experts who are passionate about payments, and a breadth of customers who will now be able to leverage the power of Voxel and Amadeus together,” he added. 

Based in Spain, Voxel operates the Bavel platform, which orchestrates payments processes for more than 50,000 hotels, 1000-plus tour operators and travel companies and more than 3,000 restaurants and franchises.

Amadeus, a travel tech company, introduced its own B2B payments platform — dubbed Outpayce — in 2022.

PYMNTS has examined the the rise of faster payments in the travel sector, including the way hotels have adopted instant payments to optimize cash flow and streamline tipping, as detailed in “Tap and Tip: Travel and Hospitality Embrace Digital and Instant Payments,” a collaboration between PYMNTS Intelligence and Ingo Money. 

That study showed that digitizing legacy payment systems with faster and instant payment solutions lets hoteliers better cater to customer demands of customers, with many of those guests preferring mobile solutions to check in, pay and order food at hotels. 

“Furthermore, the integration of instant payment technologies can streamline the entire guest experience for hotel establishments, while also facilitating quicker access to cash flow insights for managers after a successful transaction,” PYMNTS wrote last week. 

Elsewhere in the travel payments space, PYMNTS spoke last week with Richard Wazacz, CEO at foreign exchange company Travelex, about the way the continued use of cash as the chief payment method for cross-border trips is driving an increase in travel industry revenue. 

“Cash is seen as a trusted mode of payment when you travel across borders,” Wazacz said. “A lot of payment methods are still very domestic or national-based, and consumers who rely on cash have the confidence that it will always work wherever they are in the world.”

In addition to the confidence it gives travelers, Wazacz said cash offers a tangible way to keep track of expenses, especially for budget-conscious individuals.

“If you’ve got $100 in your pocket, you know how much money you’ve got left,” he said, adding that it’s a clarity often not found with electronic payment methods.

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