D-EDGE and PayPal partner to facilitate secured payment at booking time

PARIS, FRANCE - MediaOutReach - 28 May 2019 - In most e-commerce business today, payment is done atthe time of purchase and not at the time of consumption. Over the recent yearsthe usual pattern has become "Select/Book >Pay >Get".

But in the hotel sector, theprevailing practice remains: "Book > Get > Pay"

Today, this practice constitutes one of the main impediments to revenue growth for hoteliers due to its negative effects:

> High cancellation rate: According to a recentresearch by D-EDGE, over 23.5% of the bookings of independent hotels and 35% on-the-booksrevenue is cancelled before arrival.

> Fraudulent Bookings: As the booking is notengaging the end user, some hotels may be the victim of unscrupulous visitorsbooking long-term stays (20 days or more) just to feed their Visa's demands forexample.

> Cash flow impact: According to the recentD-EDGE's survey, average booking time (lead time) on hotels' brand website is37 days ... 37 days of missed cash flow.

To cope with these issues,hoteliers should enable and encourage payment at time of booking and shouldwidened the form of payment accepted.  Itis also a response to a growing demand from the end travellers: 59%* of themwill book somewhere again if they are able to pay quickly the first time.

With this in mind, D-EDGE andPayPal have partnered to enable hoteliers to accept payments quickly on theirhotel website, from almost anywhere around the world, in a secure manner.

This partnership also enableshoteliers who do not have a PayPal account to create theirs in a few minutesand manage it directly from their D-EDGE platform. The account creation processis very fast and hoteliers can then start accepting payment instantly on theirbooking engine from almost anywhere around the world.

Pierre-Charles Grob, CEO ofD-EGDE said "Thanks to this partnership,the 11,000 hoteliers whose websites are powered by a Booking Engine D-EDGE ( exAvailpro Fastbooking)  can in a very easyway get access to the 267 million active PayPal users  around the world and offer them a simple wayto pay in a few clicks at the time of booking from any device including mobilephones."  The return on experienceshows that the conversion rate can increase up to 87.5%** thanks to PayPalsolution for mobile.

"Thanks tothis partnership with D-EDGE, we offer an additional choice of payment to ourusers and hoteliers. We respond to a strong expectation of our customers: weoffer them an easy, fast and secure payment at the time of booking" added Damien Perillat, GeneralManager PayPal, Southern Europe.

* Source: Google/Ipsos, August 2016.

**Source:PayPal -comScore, 4th Quarter 2015.

About D-EDGE

Combiningthe technical excellence of Availpro with the digital marketing expertise ofFastbooking, D-EDGE brings a holistic hospitality technology infrastructureunder one roof. The integrated range of solutions covers all stages of hoteldistribution which encompasses Central Reservation System, Data Intelligence,Connectivity Hub, Digital Media and Website Creation.

With a teamof 350 experts located in over 20 countries, D-EDGE provides localised support,services and tools. With its global network of 500+partners D-EDGE'sever-expanding ecosystem is a positive place to do business and grow.

About PayPal