Secure Your Transactions: Ways to Receive Online Payments for your Hotel

Tomi Ogundayo - 9 Mar, 2023

In the current digital era, businesses must accept online payments in order to remain competitive and satisfy their customers’ needs. This is especially true for lodging establishments, as online payment methods streamline business operations for hotel staff while offering visitors convenience and security. This article will examine the many ways to receive payment online and protect hoteliers’ transactions.

Table of Contents

Online payment services: an era of digital security

Being in a so-called digital era has a lot of pros, but that means also that is becoming easier for “digital thieves” to steal from people. With the increasing ways to receive payment online, there has been a corresponding rise in online fraud. As a hotelier, protecting your clients and your business from fraudulent activities is essential.

Protect your customers’ bank accounts. Customers expect their bank accounts to be secure when they make online payments, and it’s your responsibility as a business owner to ensure that their financial information is protected.
Protect your business’ money to avoid financial losses. Better for you to invest in a secure payment processing system. That way you can minimize the risk of fraud and protect your activity.
Choose a good payment processing service for your hotel.
Train your employees with all the best practices they need to prevent fraud.

Know Online payment system: some definitions before starting

PayPal and Google Pay

PayPal and Google Pay are two pretty well-known ways to receive payment online and to do online payments.
They are important for hoteliers because they offer a convenient and secure way for customers to pay for their bookings. By integrating PayPal and Google Pay, hoteliers can provide customers with an additional payment option that is easy to use and widely recognized, therefore, by extension, considered reliable. This can lead to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.

PayPal is an online payment system, which means that it could be useful for you to receive payments and for your guests to pay you safely.

Stripe

Stripe is an effective way to receive payment online, a payment processing platform that allows businesses to accept and manage payments online from any user. It provides a suite of tools and integrations (also through APIs) that allow businesses, including hotels, to accept payments from customers around the world in all currencies, which is definitely a plus for someone that sells accommodations to clients all around the world.

Stripe is important for hoteliers also because it offers a secure way to process payments, which can help to reduce the risk of fraud and chargebacks, as we said in the previous paragraph. Additionally, Stripe offers a range of payment methods and currencies, making it easy for hoteliers to receive money from customers in different parts of the world. Overall, Stripe provides a seamless and flexible payment processing solution that can help you to improve the payment experience for your customers. And if the whole process from the website to the payment is good you are already in a good position with them. Stripe is definitely something worth knowing and using to take hotels to the next level when it comes to ways to receive payments online.

Through the Stripe platform, it is possible to use:

Credit and debit cards;
Digital wallets;
Bank debits and transfers;
Recurring bank debits;
Deferred payments;
Vouchers;
Currencies.

What are the 4 types of payment methods and platforms? How to take payments online when you have a hotel business.

1- Payment Gateways: the most used mode of payments

Payment gateways are one of the most popular ways to receive payment online. By serving as a middleman between the hotel and the visitor’s bank, payment gateways make sure that the transaction is safe and dependable. Also, a variety of payment methods, such as bank transfers, credit and debit cards, and e-wallets, are supported by payment gateways.

Most Payment services can offer payment gateway solutions that help secure the sensitive information of both the hotel and the guest. You may look for one of these payment services when looking for this kind of solution, PayPal, Stripe, and Square.

It is important to highlight that a payment gateway on its own becomes less efficient if not attached to a direct booking engine that links the payment to the right amount and date.

2- How to set up payment on the website? Direct Booking Engines.

Direct booking engines are another great way for hotels to accept payments online. Direct booking engines are online reservation systems that are built into a hotel’s website and enable customers to make reservations and payments directly there.

If you want to increase direct bookings and lower commission costs from third-party booking services (like Booking.com or Airbnb), consider direct booking engines.

To maximise the benefits of a direct booking engine, it is better to implement a payment gateway to ensure the checkout process and receive the payments and avoid contact forms that make the process longer.

3- How to make clients pay online with electronic payment? Accept Mobile Payment Apps

Surely another aspect to take into account is the advent of digital wallets. For a hotel, it is crucial that the way to receive payment online has been chosen and is compatible with this.

Mobile payment programs like Apple Pay and Google Pay have grown in popularity. These apps give users a simple and contactless payment option by enabling them to pay with their mobile devices online and on-site-

Hotels can enjoy these mobile payment apps in their payment systems, enabling visitors to use their mobile devices to pay in just one click or tap for their accommodations and other hotel services. Google Pay and Apple Pay store the client’s payment information and make the checkout process very fast, making the transition smoother.

It is crucial to pick a trustworthy provider and guarantee that the payment procedure is secure, much like with payment gateways.

So, you can consider some best practices to safeguard their online payment transactions in addition to these payment methods:

Employ Secure Connections: To avoid data breaches, make sure that all payment transactions are carried out via secure connections (https) to increase trustworthiness.
Adopt PCI Compliance: The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) specifies guidelines for protecting financial data. Hotels must make sure that their payment systems comply with PCI standards.
Protect critical guest information, such as credit card numbers and personal information, by using encryption.
Train Staff: Train hotel personnel on security best practices to prevent human error and lower the risk of data breaches.
Adopt Automatic payment solutions: There are solutions on the market that are tailored and made for hoteliers with ad-hoc functionality that can make you avoid manual errors, save training costs for your employees and are secured and PCI compliant.

In order for you and your activity to remain competitive and satisfy your customers’ expectations, you must choose one or more than one of these ways to receive payment online. So, you will be able to provide convenient and secure payment choices to your customers by utilizing payment gateways, direct booking engines, mobile payment apps, and virtual credit cards. The danger of data breaches can also be decreased by employing security best practices, which can help you to safeguard sensitive visitor information.

4- Receive payments from debit and credit card

If you want to keep up with the times, offering a range of payment types and ways to receive payment online, including debit and credit cards, can significantly enhance the payment experience for hotel customers. They are very well-known, quick, and easy to use. It makes it easier and more convenient for customers to pay, and it smooths the check-out process which can lead to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty. Additionally, accepting debit and credit cards allows you to expand your customer base by catering to a wider range of payment preferences to receive money for your accommodations. While there may be transaction fees associated with processing card payments, the benefits of providing a seamless payment experience and offering a range of payment options far outweigh the costs.

FAQ: See more about ways to process payment online

How to accept credit card payments online?

Accepting credit card payments online is a useful way to receive payment online, and an important part of running a successful business. It allows customers to pay for goods and services without having to worry about cash or check payments. For hotels, it also offers an easy way to keep track of customer payment history and manage reservations.

The best option for accepting credit card payments online is to use a payment gateway such as PayPal, Stripe, and Square. These gateways are secure and reliable and offer the customer the ability to pay with their debit or credit card. It’s also significant for businesses to have a bank account in order to receive money from customers.

Once you have chosen your preferred payment gateway, it’s essential that you set up your account correctly so that customers can easily make payments online. This includes setting up the correct billing information, processing fees, currency conversions, and more. After this is done, you can start accepting payments from customers quickly and securely.

What is the best option to receive online transactions?

Online transactions are a convenient and effective way to receive online payments from customers and clients. There are several options available, such as PayPal, Stripe, Google Pay, debit cards, electronic payments and email invoices. Each of these has its own advantages and disadvantages, so it is important to consider the needs of your activity before deciding which one is the best option. For example, if you want to accept payments from international customers then PayPal or Stripe may be a good choice as they offer global payment solutions. On the other hand, if you only need to accept payments from local customers then debit cards may be more suitable as they offer faster processing times. Ultimately, it is up to you to decide which way to receive online payments works best for your business needs.