Almost three quarters (72%) of travellers would choose a travel company based on its strong reputation for secure commerce amid rising cases of payments fraud.
Half of respondents to a new poll by Amadeus travel payments specialist Outpayce say they have been a victim, including 38% in the UK.
On a global basis, 64% of the 4,500 travellers polled also perceive payment fraud to be increasing.
The travel industry remains a target for organised fraud rings due to the significant transaction values and cross-border nature of the industry, according to the company.
But efforts by the trade to prevent fraud received mixed reactions from travellers polled from France, Brazil, the UK, the US and Singapore.
Two of every three respondents claim that a travel company has declined a legitimate purchase, even when they have sufficient funds.
Most respondents say this created a negative perception of the company.
Such experiences suggest the industry is struggling to accurately identify fraudulent payments and is likely to be declining a significant number of legitimate transactions.
Almost two-thirds (63%) of travellers are reluctant to store their payment details with travel companies due to concerns over fraud, data privacy, and unauthorised charges.
A third of respondents do not trust travel companies to keep their payments data secure, fearing details would be lost during a data breach.
Tokenization, which replaces sensitive payment card data with a secure token, is emerging as a technology that aims to cut risk exposure for merchants by ensuring the travel company never needs to store the traveller’s sensitive payment details.
Outpayce global head of product and delivery Jean-Christophe Lacour said: “It’s clear from this research that there is an issue with the perception of security, which is making it harder to deliver smooth one-click payments.
“Widely publicised data breaches have reduced consumer confidence and the industry needs to take proactive measures to rebuild trust.
“New approaches like ‘tokenization’ and fraud screening solutions using models trained specifically on travel purchase data can really help transform the payment experience into a more secure one.”