The world-traveling has come to a standstill due to the pandemic. Many countries have banned people from traveling, canceled flights, quarantine restrictions, and so on. It took a toll on the travel companies, and the companies are trying to embrace technology to recover the losses. The pandemic has canceled people from traveling for a few months. The bookings made for holidays during the summer months are canceled. The consumers are getting promissory notes and travel vouchers in the form of funds.
Few countries started to lift the ban on travel, and they are running flights to different countries. The flight corridors are also removing restrictions on quarantine. Expedia and Travala have extended their mode of payments for travelers. This encourages travelers to travel once more without losing their money. The new partnership with the travel giant and the online accommodation booking platform will allow people to book the accommodation from umpteen options available on Expedia.
Travala.com, which is an online travel agency, is allowing people to book hotels using cryptocurrency. The Binance crypto exchange backs it. The online travel agency is giving support for Expedia bookings. So the bitcoin payments are now possible for the travel giant to accept, which was otherwise shelved back in 2018.
Travala, the hotel booking platform based in Australia, is integrated with Rapid API of the Expedia group partner services. This allows the company to gain access to around 7 00,000 hotels. The Expedia listing would pay with approximately 30 different types of cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, Binance coin, AVA, Ethereum, and other currencies. The transactions are carried out by the users of Travala. Earlier, Expedia used to accept cryptocurrency payments, but it disconnected the payment form in 2018 and again resumed it.
You can make payments using cryptocurrency using the booking API that is offered by the subsidiary of Expedia.
The CEO of Travala, Juan Otero, has explained about the new move with the public. The Expedia booking was not developed with the intent to accept crypto. On the other hand, the CEO stated that there were many issues that Expedia has faced to make the bitcoin payment work.
The senior vice president of Expedia Partner services stated that found that the choice of payment has evolved over a period, and the partnership with Travala would allow the customers to make payment through bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies.
This kind of partnership will rarely happen since these two are strong competitors in the market. Expedia is a well-established company, while Travala focuses on cryptocurrency. Expedia is the second largest online travel agency in the world. Travala is one of the cryptocurrency projects that bridge the travel gaps between multiple nations.
The partnership has come into force with the world recovering from the recent pandemic. The booking revenue of Travala has seen a rise of up to 170% and a value of USD 1, 84,000. The night room bookings have increased to 81%, and slowly the world is getting back to its feet.