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Indeed, the travel and tourism industry is expected to outperform the global economy over the next decade, growing 4% year-on-year. But with new opportunities comes new challenges and travel companies will need to make some preparations to compete in 2017. Here are four trends to get ahead of:

More risk to manage on a global scale
More global travel, and people travelling to more exotic locations, is a theme we will see grow in the next five years. This is driven by a shift to ‘cultural experience’ holidays, as opposed to the traditional beach getaways. Indeed, MasterCard’s latest Global Destination Cities Index found Osaka, Tokyo, Seoul and Bangkok have all surged in popularity over the past couple of years as we broaden our horizons.

For travel providers, this means dealing with new, and potentially unknown, suppliers across the world. With 50% of travel firms already stating that credit card fraud is their biggest challenge, according to Phocuswright’s research, protecting against fraud and working with safer solutions will become an even bigger priority and mountain to climb in the future.

Greater chance of currency volatility
Major political and economic events across the world have seen currencies fluctuate dramatically – at times we saw the pound tumble to its lowest level in three decades.

Such volatility is massively impacting some travel companies. With many unable to absorb the hit because of tight margins, they have no choice but to recoup the loss and it is their customers that are left having to pay the price through things like surcharges.

Companies should be mindful of financial drains, including hidden bank charges and mark-ups from providers, that could be undermining their efforts to catering for consumers’ demand for holidays further afield

Situations like this can be easily avoided if travel companies take simple steps to insulate themselves from currency fluctuations. Today there are FX options which allow travel companies to lock in the currency rate at the time of booking, so when it comes to payment there aren’t any nasty surprises.

Hidden fees could be lurking
With more overseas suppliers, managing international payments efficiently will be critical to staying competitive and protecting margins. Companies should be mindful of financial drains, including hidden bank charges and mark-ups from providers, that could be undermining their efforts to catering for consumers’ demand for holidays further afield.

In fact, businesses could be paying up to 3% more on their cross-border transactions through such hidden charges, as well as mark-ups from providers. Companies should use local currency settlements to avoid these cash drains.

Frictionless payments enhances customer experience
With ever increasing competition, creating a fast and easy customer experience is a key factor in converting sales. The more hassle-free the booking and payments experience, the more likely customers are to book and book again. Yet, one in four companies is being held back by tracking their payments and commissions manually, according to recent research carried out by Phocuswright. Not only is this slowing down internal processes and hampering the customer experience, but it’s also resulting in a huge €215 million of unnecessary annual waste. Automating payment processes will help to improve the customer experience, and make it possible to reinvest money into innovations elsewhere in the company.

Anthony Hynes is chief executive at eNett