A new survey of 4,500 travelers across five markets commissioned by travel payments specialist Outpayce from Amadeus, reveals growing demand for robust payment security, with over 70% of travelers stating they would choose a travel company based on its strong reputation for secure commerce.  

The findings highlight the increasing importance travelers place on secure payments, showing that security has become a key factor influencing traveler purchasing decisions. When asked whether a 5% discount would tempt them to travel with a company that has poor cyber security, the vast majority (67%) said ‘no’, with 26% answering ‘yes’. On average, respondents said they would require a 38% discount to be persuaded to book a travel company with a reputation for poor cyber security. 

Increasing rates of fraud  

On a global basis, half of respondents say they have been a victim of payments fraud, which occurs when a bad actor obtains payment details and uses them to illegally purchase goods or withdraw cash. Notably, rates of fraud are much higher in some markets, like Brazil, where nine in every ten respondents have been a victim.  

On a global basis, 64% of travelers also told us they perceive payment fraud to be increasing. The travel industry remains a target for organized fraud rings due to the significant transaction values and cross-border nature of the industry. Indeed, a recent study from Juniper Research found that 46% of all payments fraud is targeted at the airline industry, highlighting the challenge faced by travel companies that must effectively prevent fraud without introducing additional friction to the payments experience.  

Industry efforts to prevent fraud received mixed reactions from travelers. Two of every three respondents claim that a travel company has declined a legitimate purchase, even when they have sufficient funds. Most respondents said this created a negative perception of the company. Such experiences suggest the industry is struggling to accurately identify fraudulent payments and is likely to be declining a significant number of legitimate transactions leading to abandonment and frustration.  

Low trust in travel companies’ cyber security capabilities 

To deliver smoother, one-click, payment experiences travel companies increasingly want their customers to store online card details with them. However, despite respondents to our survey choosing to store card details with four different merchants on average, trust in travel companies is low. In fact, 63% of travelers are reluctant to store their payment details with travel companies due to concerns over fraud, data privacy, and unauthorized charges. A third of respondents said they do not trust travel companies to keep their payments data secure at all, fearing details would be lost during a data breach.  

Tokenization, which replaces sensitive payment card data with a secure token, is emerging as a crucial technology that reduces risk exposure for merchants by ensuring the travel company never needs to store the traveler’s sensitive payment details.  

Jean-Christophe Lacour, SVP & Global Head of Product & Delivery, Outpayce from Amadeus: “It’s clear from this research that there is an issue with the perception of security, which is making it harder to deliver smooth one-click payments. Widely publicized data breaches have reduced consumer confidence and the industry needs to take proactive measures to rebuild trust. New approaches like ‘tokenization’ and fraud screening solutions using models trained specifically on travel purchase data can really help transform the payment experience into a more secure one.”  

Reactions to Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) and Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) 

Following the introduction of Strong Customer Authentication requirements in the second Payments Services Directive (PSD2) the majority of travel purchases initiated in Europe now incorporate Two-Factor Authentication (2FA). 2FA typically requires the traveler to authenticate using a One-Time Passcode or biometrics. 

Despite concerns that this additional step may introduce friction to the purchase process, most respondents (75%) said performing 2FA was ‘easy’ last time they purchased travel online and only 9% said it was ‘difficult’. Although nearly half of travelers in our survey say they have abandoned a travel purchase when asked to perform 2FA, significantly higher than any other industry.