Travel agents signed to Travelport will now be able to accept payments from travellers through mobile money transfer, after the firm entered into a partnership with payments processor 3G Direct Pay. The payments will be possible via M-Pesa and Airtel money transfer services.

Travelport East Africa manager Nita Nagi said Kenya is expected to pioneer this innovative payment method for the travel agent community and travellers within the region.

“The new plug-in, which integrate with our point of sale technology for travel agents, Travelport Smartpoint, offers a more convenient payment method for payment as it is now fully integrated into the agent’s workflow, giving them an edge over competitors, and increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty,” said Ms Nagi.

Travelport runs a travel commerce platform providing distribution, technology, payment and other solutions to a global network of over 60,000 travel agents.

“Kenya has led the world in mobile-based payment systems for a number of years, and it is therefore fitting that it is the first country where Travelport will launch the mobile payment solution,” she said.

For travel agents, the system is expected to improve work efficiency by allowing them to issue instant mobile payment requests from their agency screens; it saves time as it removes the need to leave the workflow to accept mobile payments and it reduces errors as all mobile payments are automatically checked for authorisation during the ticketing process.

Africa’s travel and tourism industry is forecast to grow by almost 5 per cent annually to over $121 billion in the next 10 years, supporting 30 million jobs.

Speaking at the TravelPort Africa conference in Cape Town, South Africa, Douglas Jewson, Travelport’s managing director for Africa, said that with the recent creation of Travelport Digital, travel agents in the region can now take advantage of the fast growing digital economy and new ways of accessing and booking travel.

Managing director of 3G Direct Pay Group Eran Feinstein said that digital payments in the business-to-consumer world are booming — through the expansion of “tap and go” contactless cards or mobile wallets from tech giants, Apple and Google.

“For consumers across the world, making payments has never been faster or easier. With a changing demographic, travel agents, especially in Africa where there is a smartphones boom, are sitting on a potential gold mine,” said Mr Feinstein.