Leading multi-product travel platform Digitrips says Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) services have become a game changer for travel e-commerce, with such purchases accounting for up to 75% of sales for the company’s B2B2C customers. Digitrips currently operates 65 white-label storefronts for e-commerce players across Europe, most of which offer BNPL – a type of short-term financing that allows consumers to make purchases and pay for them over time with little or no interest.

According to the platform, the financial service now represents anywhere between 35% to 75% of sales for their B2B2C customers, depending on the site’s customer typology.Emilie Dumont, CEO of DIGITRIPS, said: “It’s evident that Buy Now Pay Later purchases play a critical role in empowering our white labels partners sites to make travel more accessible. In fact, some report that the majority of their travellers choose to defer their payment or spread the costs over a series of instalments.

“As the numbers suggest, offering payment flexibility to passengers not only facilitates the pent-up demand for travel but also emphasises the need for personalised offers that cater to customers’ payment preferences.”

The 2022 version of the FLOA – Kantar European barometer highlights the growing importance of payment facilities in the consumption habits of Europeans. The focus on travel in this study revealed that travel is a strategic category for BNPL providers, with 35% of users leveraging the financial service to book travel arrangements. In France, Digitrips’ main market, the proportion of BNPL users benefitting from deferred or staggered travel payments is as high as 44%.

Meanwhile, just under half (49%) of the respondents of the FLOA-Kantar European barometer stated they would not have been able to make some of these purchases without the flexibility offered by BNPL, further highlighting the growing importance of the financial service in driving demand across the travel sector.

Marc Lanvin, Deputy CEO of FLOA, said: “As it develops in France and Europe, and despite disparities in usage from one country to another, this study reveals increasingly strong expectations in terms of payment facilities. In the travel sector, FLOA’s solutions are even more in demand due to rising inflation, but also because the customer can make a travel reservation at the most convenient time to take advantage of early bookings, promotions, etc.”