How the Asia uplift will catalyze fintech investment

For the last few years, Amadeus has published a list of trends that we think will define the industry for the next twelve months. Last year, our headline trend - Music Tourism anticipated the growing significance of event driven travel as hundreds of thousands of music fans traveled the world to see their favourite artists. Taylor Swift, Coldplay and Bruce Springsteen concerts have all been recognized for their impact on local tourism, as their tours sold out hotels and flights worldwide.

Nostalgia driven vacations, personalised in-flight entertainment and unique hotels are all poised to dominate during 2025. However, one trend is particularly exciting to me; the growth of travel within and to Asia - or as we call it, the Asia Uplift.

Beyond promising rich new travel experiences - I think greater intra-Asia travel will catalyse investment in payments and define how we accept and make payments within the travel industry and beyond. But first - what do we mean by the Asia Uplift?

The Asia Uplift refers to the expanding segment of travelers across Asia. To put some scale on this prediction:

-The Asia-Pacific region will be responsible for 50% of global air traffic growth over the next 15 years.

-Indian consumers spent nearly $20bn USD on foreign trips during 2024, which is three times more than was spent as little as five years ago.

- The global share of leisure travel spending from people across the Asia Pacific region is expected to increase from 29% in 2023 to 35% this year.

-In 2023 travelers from the Asia Pacific region represented 29% of global leisure travel spending. This is set to increase to 35% this year.

We believe there are three intersecting forces driving this change:

- The first is an increased interest to visit amongst western travelers , second is the growing middle class across South Asia , and finally, we’re seeing countries introduce more flexible visa and legal requirements to entice visitors.

In other words, there is greater mobility across Asia and travel has become more accessible. 

These factors are contributing to a new frontier of travel. National tourism boards and travel businesses have responded by investing to accommodate this growth. In September last year, the South Asian airline, Air India announced a $400 million modernisation overhaul  while 500,000 new hotel rooms were being built across Asia as of June 2024 , with the Hong Kong Tourism board having committed to investing $124 million by 2026.

Beyond the excitement associated with the rapid growth of travel to and from Asia, I believe one of the byproducts is being overlooked. The resurgence of travel in Asia may catalyze fintech innovation across the travel industry and the rest of the world. So what are the implications of the Asian Uplift, and how will this impact travel payments globally? 

The need for FX clarity

Buying travel from another country can be complex with products often priced in an unfamiliar currency. As more travelers from Asia jump off in Europe, perhaps taking a long-haul flight before booking several more short-haul trips to explore the continent, we expect more people to face this complexity.The need for FX clarity

For example, if a traveler from Vietnam has landed in London and decides to then fly to Rome, their flight is likely to be priced in British Pounds – an unfamiliar currency when you’re accustomed to the Vietnamese Dong. This is the core reason that more travel companies are realizing the advantages of pricing their offers in the traveler’s own local currency. Doing so delivers an improved shopping experience while ensuring travelers don’t need to navigate away from the airline’s website to perform a manual conversion. Taking control of FX conversions can also be a profitable additional revenue stream for the industry by performing a service that was traditionally undertaken by the traveler’s own bank.

Payment method innovations: Entirely new infrastructures

Where much of Europe and North America typically rely on traditional payment methods like credit and debit cards - Asia is characterized by the rapid uptake of new and innovative approaches to payment.

To name just a few, there are the super apps like WeChat Pay (China) and GCash (Philippines), QR Code payments like Bharat QR (India), Digital Bank Transfers like PayNow (Singapore), PayID (Australia) as well as entirely new Account-to-Account payment methods like Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in India. As greater numbers of travelers from Asia travel to other parts of the world our industry will begin to cater to their needs, facilitating acceptance of, and familiarity with, more alternative methods of payment.

The rest of the world is also increasingly looking to Asia when it comes to payments infrastructure innovation. India’s UPI allows anyone with a mobile phone to pay for goods and services directly from their bank account as well as sending money on a peer-to-peer basis. The uptake of the service has been astronomical, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 129% since its introduction in 2017. Similar schemes are now planned in Europe and other parts of the world, which will allow people to make instant, cheap and reliable payments from their mobile.

Travel agents, airlines and hotels all have a vested interest in optimizing payments to ensure they can cater to the needs of travelers from Asia to improve conversion, unlock new streams of revenue and provide a better overall experience. 2025 may well be the year of the Asia Uplift but it’s also likely to be the year of payments transformation.