Cross-border hotel bookings bring together multiple currencies, payment methods and settlement rules. For hospitality groups, the costs of accepting payments can affect the direct-booking experience as well as reconciliation.
In this TNGlobal Q&A, Phil Pomford, executive lead, Enterprise APAC, at Global Payments, discusses its Centara Hotels & Resorts relationship, payment localization in Southeast Asia and potential safeguards as AI agents enter travel transactions.
What are the main payment infrastructure gaps that still create friction for international travellers and hospitality merchants in Thailand?
Payment infrastructure gaps show up in three places – currency, payment method support and settlement.
Firstly, foreign exchange volatility and unexpected conversion rates can make travellers hesitate or abandon their bookings at checkout as they are put off by sudden changes in price and a lack of transparency before conversion.
Secondly, many international visitors when arriving in a new country now expect their home card or wallet to be accepted by payment platforms. According to the 2026 Global Payments Report, Thailand is one of the world’s most account-to-account-led markets, with PromptPay driving 44% of online spend and 43% of in-person spend in 2025.
Finally, moving funds across borders is a complex process for the merchant and settlement speed matters. Merchants require timely, predictable access to their funds and the ability to reconcile bookings made in multiple currencies without added cost or manual effort.
This carries a commercial cost. Industry figures put hotel commissions to online travel agencies at 15 to 30% per booking. Therefore, the importance of a checkout that supports a range of payment methods has become even more valuable.
For a hotel group serving guests from many markets, how do you support different card, wallet and currency preferences without adding significant reconciliation or operational complexity for the merchant?
The aim is to make the complexity invisible to both the guest and the merchant. Through our partnership with Centara Hotels and Resorts, Global Payments is enabling multi-currency pricing in 153 currencies and 200 payment types, with reliable FX sources and rate-locks configured. Guests see prices and pay in their own currency using the method they are familiar with, and the price they see is the price they pay.
For Centara, the benefit is one provider one integration. The platform connects with its existing reservation and property management systems rather than requiring it to be rebuild or heavily modified. This seamless integration also enables multi-property, cross-region acquiring through a single provider – a capability that matters for a group with properties across 10 countries. This is how you ensure reconciliation stays simple as the group scales.
Which metrics best show whether cross-border payment improvements are working for a travel merchant?
A travel merchant needs to see several metrics improving together to know cross-border payment enhancements are working.
Firstly, checkout conversion for international guests, particularly drop-off at the payment step. Secondly, authorisation and acceptance rates by market and payment method. Thirdly, the share of bookings coming direct rather than through online travel agencies, because that is the commercial goal behind the payment experience. After that come settlement speed and reconciliation effort, total cost of acceptance including FX, and finally chargebacks and fraud rates.
The important thing is to segment these by guest market, because a blended average hides the problems that need to be fixed.
How does Global Payments approach regulatory, data and localisation requirements when building payment infrastructure across different Southeast Asian markets?
Each country in Southeast Asia has its own payment rails, regulators and consumer habits, so we combine global reach with local expertise to meet merchants and consumers where they like to play within each market.
Localisation means supporting the rails consumers prefer. Our 2026 Global Payments Report showed that PromptPay in Thailand, PayNow in Singapore and DuitNow in Malaysia are increasingly interconnected. This creates a strong alternative to global card networks for cross-border payments. Central banks from India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand also created Nexus Global Payments in March 2025 to link domestic fast-payment systems, allowing for greater interconnectivity for the region. We design our infrastructure to plug into these national systems which allows us to meet each market’s data and compliance requirements, rather than requiring a global template for every market.
What does the Centara partnership indicate about Global Payments’ wider growth strategy in Asia, and which types of travel or hospitality use cases are likely to see the most investment next?
Centara reflects our approach to our work in Asia. We look for high-volume travel sectors where cross-border payment complexity makes it harder for merchants to attract and retain customers. In Thailand we have built these relationships with the country’s leading carriers to create a connected ecosystem that follows the traveller from the departure gate to the hotel lobby. The challenges are similar to those facing our global airline partners, so we aim to extend a proven cross-border solution to hospitality.
We see opportunity in improving the parts of the traveller journey where international guests face the most friction and where merchants want a direct relationship with their customers.
As AI agents begin to influence travel discovery and booking, how do you expect the payment layer to change when more transactions may be initiated or assisted by software rather than directly by the traveller?
Our latest Agentic Commerce Report shows Singaporeans are open to using AI agents if they operate within guidelines and can maintain control. 59% say they’re open to an AI agent taking part in their shopping and 23% have already used one. However, only 15% would let an agent complete a purchase entirely on its own, while 65% want to approve every purchase individually.
Given this, the payment layer needs to carry verification within the agentic flow. This could look like a notification before money moves, biometric confirmation and assurance that card details stay protected. 45% of Singaporeans want a push notification before an AI-driven purchase, and 82% say it matters that no one – including AI agents – has visibility of their card or bank details. So, while AI agents will begin to do the browsing and comparing, the final purchase decision will remain within the control of the traveller. For travel merchants, the key is to design for these checkpoints now.
Editor’s note: This Q&A has been lightly edited for clarity and TNGlobal house style. The substance of the interviewee’s responses has been preserved.
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