Airwallex Partnership With Agoda Booking Platform Offers Business Travel Discounts

FinTech Airwallex has teamed with Agoda to help Hong Kong business travelers book their accommodations.

The companies say their partnership — announced in a recent news release — is designed to meet a surge in demand for business travel.

When booking through the Agoda travel platform, small businesses and startups in Hong Kong that have Airwallex business accounts can enjoy discounts on hotels and cashback on airfare and accommodations.

“After almost three years of pandemic travel restrictions, many local businesses are eager to start traveling again,” said Arnold Chan, Airwallex’s general manager for Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. “Being able to travel enables companies to keep up with the competition and to identify opportunities for growth.”

Other recent signs of the growing demand for business travel include American Express Ventures’ investment last week in the hotel software provider Selfbook, and Regions Bank’s debut of a virtual card designed to streamline business travel payments.

Airwallex last week announced a collaboration with Plaid to offer streamlined payments. The partnership allows Airwallex to provide speedier Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments and a cost-efficient way for customers to authorize debits from their bank accounts.

The company’s Agoda partnership comes as consumers are increasingly using digital solutions to pay for airfare and mitigate travel challenges, according to recent PYMNTS research.

Consumer use of airline booking apps and websites increased by 16% in the second quarter of 2022, making it the fastest-growing digital activity of the 37 such activities we monitored in the study “How The World Does Digital: The Impact Of Payments On Digital Transformation.”

There was also a 15% increase in the use of apps to book and purchase train and bus tickets and taxi rides, making this the second-fastest-growing type of digital activity.

Our research found that these figures show both a strong wish to travel — in spite of inflation — and the growing digital transformation of how people pay for that travel. Some of the new digital tools available to consumers during this year’s holiday travel season will let them pay for and manage their trips over public transportation and air.