Hoteliers have been urged to embrace digital payment systems in offering their services.
"Covid necessitated and accelerated the demand for digital payment solutions in the hospitality industry. With the need to have efficient payment solutions to cater for diversity of business needs in the industry, digital payment systems are needed than ever before," Susan Muhwezi, the chair lady of the Uganda Hotel Owners Association (UHOA) said.
She made the remarks during an engagement between hoteliers and Pesapal, regional leading payment services provider held at Protea Hotel in Kampala.
Customer acceptance of cashless payment has outrageously increased since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic world over.
Many people now prefer to look for the option of swiping cards before walking in hotels, lodges and other service providers since it brings the absolute convenience of quicker transactions, unnecessary human errors, irresistible discounts, and unexpected loyalty points earned in exchange for mileage or gift cards.
According to Mrs. Muhwezi, it is high time UHOA entered into partnership global players to provide solutions that could accelerate the path to value for the hospitality and travel sectors post-pandemic.
"We truly believe and hope that Pesapal will offer a one stop solution. Pesapal should customise its services to the needs of UHOA members because we don't want a one size fits all approach."
According to Isao Otika, the technical director for Pesapal, cashless payments are the way to go as technology continues to evolve, world over.
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"When you go cashless, payment is guaranteed ahead of time because the customer can pay you from the comfort of their home and you receive payment instantly. You can start using that capital to run your day-to-day errands. There is also automatic reconciliation because the transactions that happen are automatically reconciled with any system," Otika said.
The Pesapal technical director also introduced hoteliers to Reserveport a booking platform that enables hoteliers accept direct bookings.
"This is an all-in-one solution that allows hotels manage their bookings in one place, to manage their inventory and enhancements. The advantage with this solution is that is it plug and play in that you don't need any infrastructure to set up the facility. Reserveport ensures the guest remains your, we don't charge commission for bringing in your guest and in simple terms we enable direct engagements with the customer and the hotel,"Otika said.
