Goibibo enables guest houses, BnB's and budget hotels to collect digital payments from walk-in guests

In the backdrop of the demonetization drive, Goibibo has launched a feature for its partner properties to collect online payments from their walk-in and offline customers.

There is no requirement of POS machines. This is a secure and scalable feature launched by Goibibo for its partners.

85 percent of accommodation booking is offline in India. There is a significant volume of properties in India that have a large percentage of walk-in guests.

Also these properties do not have access to POS machines or digital payment instruments. Goibibo has solved this very problem by enabling 9000 properties in the first phase.

Properties range from budget hotels, Guest houses, BnB's, alternate accommodation, homes, villas, cottages, houseboats etc. It is estimated that there are more than 100,000 such long tail accommodation units in India that lack access to digital payment solutions.

Walking in customers can pay at the hotel via Credit and debit cards, EMI linked payments, Net banking and a host of wallets. Unlike wallets, this channel does not have any payment limits.

The process to collect online payments from a walking in guest is as follows: The property manager uses Goibibo's business dashboard (ingobibo.com) to generate a real time payment link that is sent to the customer's mobile phone.

The customer uses the link on his/ her mobile phone to make the payment online via Debit/ Credit card or Net banking or Wallets. All of this is 3D secure based transaction. The hotel is notified real time of the success or failure of the payment and similarly the customer is notified too. Goibibo then settles the payment to the hotelier.

"We at ibibo welcome demonetization and digitization of transactions. Our mission is to organize the accommodation and transportation industry. This payment feature for offline use case is a step in this direction. Online travel is one of the few industries that has 100 percent of its transaction in a digital format. By launching this feature, we are catalyzing the movement from offline to online and at the same time solving problems for the hotel industry," said Founder and CEO ibibo, Ashish Kashyap.