The Payments Problem Global Businesses Overlook
India has rapidly emerged as one of the world’s fastest-growing travel markets. Growing disposable income, increased air connectivity, and strong post-pandemic travel demand have pushed millions of Indians to travel abroad for business, education, and experiences.
For global travel merchants (airlines, hotels, OTAs, cruise lines, and experience platforms), this is a significant growth opportunity:
- India’s outbound travel spend was estimated at USD 21.6 billion in 2024 (Research & Markets)
- Outbound departures crossed 32.7 million+ in 2025, up nearly 6% year-on-year (Ministry of Tourism)
Demand is clearly not the problem.
Despite strong booking intent and high-value baskets, many global travel merchants still struggle to convert Indian travellers at checkout. Payments fail, stall, or drop off at the final step:
- Travel checkout abandonment from India runs as high as 81.7%, with 89% among OTAs and 79% among airlines (Ecommpay, March 2026)
- Around 37% of that drop-off traces back to payment friction alone
This is a product-and-infrastructure challenge, shaped by how travel payments from India are routed, optimised, and, in some cases, regulated.
Why Travel Payments from India Are Different
At first glance, an international travel booking looks like any other cross-border transaction. In practice, travel payments from India behave very differently.
Indian travellers are highly digital, mobile-first, and value-conscious. They strongly prefer:
- Familiar local payment methods such as UPI, RuPay, other domestic cards, NetBanking, EMI, and bank offers
- Clear, predictable final amounts without FX surprises
However, most global travel platforms rely primarily on international card acceptance for Indian customers. While operationally straightforward, this approach introduces friction at checkout, particularly for high-ticket bookings.
International card payments from India often see:
- Higher decline rates
- Additional FX fees added to the customer’s card bill after the transaction, which don’t show up in the final pricing at checkout
A large share of these declines come down to a simple default setting, not a lack of cards. Many Indian-issued cards don’t have international transactions enabled by default, so when a foreign merchant processes the charge internationally, the transaction is often declined outright, regardless of the traveller’s intent or ability to pay.
The result is predictable: across the market, unrealised bookings from failed or abandoned checkouts are estimated at over USD 9 billion annually, derived from India’s outbound travel spend, its online booking share, and observed checkout abandonment rates.
But these checkout failures are only the visible symptom.
From Conversion Optimisation to Compliance Reality
Most global travel merchants start their journey in India with a simple goal: accept payments from Indian customers and convert bookings reliably.
The easiest way to get started is through international card acceptance via a foreign payment aggregator, which is enough to validate demand and begin acquiring Indian customers. But as volumes scale, card-only setups show their limits for the same reasons already in play: card defaults and missing India-native methods like UPI, RuPay, NetBanking, EMI, and bank offers.
In practice, many merchants follow a familiar progression:
- They start with foreign PAs and international cards to go live quickly
- They move to Indian PAs to unlock local payment methods and improve conversion
- They then encounter compliance complexity that must be handled properly to scale
Once payments move through Indian payment methods, outbound travel transactions become subject to LRS – Travel, on top of the conversion challenge already in play.
At this stage, compliance is no longer theoretical. Requirements such as PAN capture, purpose declaration, and LRS-compliant reporting must be handled correctly within the payment flow.
The challenge is that not all Indian PA or PA-CB setups embed these requirements directly into checkout. Instead, compliance elements are often handled manually, post-transaction, or through fragmented user journeys, introducing new friction just as conversion improves.
The real work lies in achieving local-payment-led conversion gains while handling compliance seamlessly, without adding operational or user friction. That’s the balance modern India-facing travel payments must strike.
Global Travel Payments by Cashfree: Built for This Balance
Global Travel Payments by Cashfree is an India-native, LRS-compliant payment infrastructure built specifically for foreign travel merchants selling to Indian travellers. It’s built for this exact moment in a merchant’s India journey, helping them move beyond card-only acceptance without adding compliance complexity.
It combines access to India’s preferred local payment methods with a compliant checkout and settlement flow, embedding regulatory requirements directly into the payment experience from checkout through settlement, so merchants can improve conversion and scale in India with confidence, without having to trade one for the other.
How the Flow Works
- Merchant goes live without setting up an India entity, with checkout enabled for local Indian payment methods (UPI, NetBanking, RuPay, domestic cards, EMI, bank offers)
- Cashfree handles LRS declaration, PAN capture, TCS (where applicable), and FX routing in real time, with no extra steps for the customer
- Funds are settled in the merchant’s preferred foreign currency (USD, EUR, GBP, SGD, AED, and other supported currencies)
- Reconciliation and reporting remain clean, auditable, and bank-aligned
From checkout to settlement, the flow is designed to balance conversion performance and regulatory compliance, without compromise.
The Outcome
- Higher booking conversions from Indian travellers
- Affordability options like EMI and bank offers, unlocking higher-ticket bookings that would otherwise stall at checkout
- Fewer payment failures and refunds
- Predictable settlements and cleaner reconciliation
- Lower operational and compliance overhead
- A scalable foundation to grow India as a core outbound travel market
India is ready to travel. The question is whether your payments stack is ready.
Convert India’s demand into confirmed bookings. Ask your questions by
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