Crypto payments advance in taking on fiat
The tourism industry hasn’t been able to recover amid the coronavirus pandemic, but certain companies are starting to bring in new offers to get to more travelers. The giant travel website Expedia has added over 700,000 options of lodging to the cryptocurrency-powered platform Travala.com through a new partnership. The addition of these booking options means that, as of July 6, Travala.com will accept crypto as payment for over two million accommodations available across 230 countries.
According to what Senior Vice President at Expedia Group Alfonso Paredes said about the Travala.com services, the firm intends to grow the site’s business faster than it has done it until now. Paredes also added that it is clear for Expedia how it becomes relevant to allow users to choose their preferred payment methods. This service was made possible thanks to the collaboration of one of Expedia’s subsidiaries called Expedia Partner Solutions (EPS), which allows Travala.com to access its quick programming interface. In this way, Travala.com can access and offer Expedia’s millions of accommodations to its users.
This is not the first partnership of this kind that Travala.com makes; the firm struck a similar deal not so long ago with Booking.com, which added over 90,000 accommodations to its platform. It was revealed by the company back in January that its revenue grew by 33% after this partnership. Moreover, Travala.com has been working on other partnerships to offer more services as it recently merged with TravelByBit, a flight booking service. This addition alone brings plenty of options to crypto users to travel around the world without having to exchange their crypto assets into fiat currency.