Booking.com Fintech Lead Unpacks Payments Pivot, Vision To Refine Travel Experience

The worst part of travel often comes down to payments, loyalty rewards and customer service.

That’s according to Daniel Marovitz, the senior vice president of fintech at Booking Holdings Inc's BKNG Booking.com, with whom Benzinga spoke on how a new fintech unit adds efficiency and value to the travel marketplace.

Context: “I’ve dealt with really obscure, complicated, esoteric investment banking products, and nothing comes close to the difficulty and nuance in the travel space,” Marovitz said.

Prior to Booking, Marovitz spent his time in investment banking, entrepreneurship, and management at some names like Deutsche Bank AG DB, buzzumi and Earthport, among others.

After speaking with ex-Booking CEO Gillian Tans, Marovitz discovered untapped fintech opportunities in travel.

“There’s been more randomness injected into travel which makes a compelling case for the kinds of things we can do to add flexibility, risk, and friction reduction for bookers, partners, and suppliers.”

Fintech Launch: In a move to remove randomness from the travel process, as well as diversify its existing revenue model, Booking officially launched its fintech unit lead by Marovitz, earlier this month.

“We essentially delivered a person and it was up to the hotel to figure out how to get paid,” the fintech boss explained in a conversation on Booking’s agency model, which charged hotels a commission for filling reservations.

Typically, payments are a top reason why shopping carts get abandoned. Booking, in avoiding checkout pain points, optimized its funnels for as little friction as possible.

“For years, we generated a lot of demand that ended up in cancellations,” Marovitz told Benzinga. “But, it was worth it to the hotels to work with us, even though cancellations are not something they like.”

Amidst changing trends in travel – demand for loyalty, alternative payment methods, and improved customer experiences – Booking insulated the partner and booker sides of its market.

“The small hotel in the Midwest has no idea what Alipay or WeChat Pay is and that’s a problem because it’s expensive and complicated,” Marovitz said in reference to hotels addressing the rise in demand for alternative payments.

Now, “we can do integrations with loads of alternative payment providers, making it easier for bookers to book, and taking pressure from partners.”

Breaking Barriers: Prior to Marovitz’s arrival, Booking was optimized to avoid internal dependencies, much like Amazon.com Inc AMZN, for instance.

“Payments don’t work that way,” Marovitz chuckled. “We had to build a series of internal structures to be able to manage those internal client relationships, as well as have lots of pieces that talk to banks and alternative payment method companies.”

With Booking now positioned to insulate and solve problems that appear in the middle – between the partner and booker – Marovitz has his sights set on expanding the team to about 400 by the end of the year.

“We want to be aggressive and noisy,” he said, stating Booking would be the ultimate intersection between payments and travel. “We are in it to win it in a pretty aggressive way.”