How Next-Gen Payment Systems Are Reshaping Trust and Transactions in Hospitality

Konstantin Vladimirovich Tserazov's opinion Strategic Business Consultant and former Senior Vice President at Otkritie Bank

In today's experience-driven economy, seamless payments have become as vital as service quality, especially in sectors like hospitality, where customer trust, speed, and data security define.

Having served as Chief of the Board at Otkritie Broker and as Senior Vice President at Otkritie Bank, I've seen firsthand how the right payment infrastructure can directly impact both guest satisfaction and business performance. A simple tap-to-pay transaction at a Dubai hotel, for instance, can determine whether an international guest returns - or not. In a market where nearly 48% of hotel bookings are from overseas guests, real-time multi-currency support isn't a bonu, it's a necessity.

In Ql 2025, platforms like Adyen reported a 22% surge in multi-currency transaction volumes for the hospitality sector. This is largely driven by automated currency conversion that minimises fees and errors, while enhancing convenience for global travellers. Conversion fees have dropped by up to 15%, thanks to the integration of real-time exchange rate engines into payment gateways.

Artificial Intelligence (Al) is now playing a deeper role, moving beyond fraud detection to dynamic forecasting. It helps predict foreign currency demand, enabling a Parisian bistro or a Dubai lounge to offer frictionless payment options for guests from New York or Tokyo, all while reducing backend reconciliation costs.

Blockchain, meanwhile, is transitioning from buzzword to backend enabler. TUI Group, for example, has rolled out blockchain-based booking and payment systems that eliminate intermediaries and enhance transparency. The result? Lower costs, increased transaction integrity, and improved consumer confidence.

But as payment ecosystems evolve, so do cyber threats. In 2024 alone, hospitality businesses experienced a 12% increase in cyber breaches, with each incident costing an average of $3.82 million. This has led to rapid adoption of Al-powered fraud detection systems and blockchain's decentralised architecture to encrypt sensitive financial data.

Tokenisation, a security measure that replaces card details with encrypted tokens, is now used by roughly 80% of major hotel chains, reducing the risk of fraud by up to 33%. When combined with PCI DSS compliance and smart consent practices under frameworks like the GDPR and UAE's Personall Data Protection Law PDPL), these measures provide the transparency modern guests expect.

Regulatory alignment is no longer optional. GDPR-related fines topped €20 million in 2025, making compliance a core component of any payment strategy. Increasingly, hospitality brands are using user-friendly interfaces at digital check-ins to secure guest consent for data storage and processing, ensuring legal and reputational safety.

In the end, payments are no longer a backend process, they're part of the guest experience. For global hospitality players, investing in resilient, intelligent, and compliant payment systems is not just about staying competitive. It's about staying trustworthy.