96% of citizens in Spain currently formalize their vacation bookings using digital payment methods. The bank card, whether credit or debit, remains the predominant option for 81% of users, according to the study "Payment Methods: The Definitive Decision," prepared in 2026 by the specialized firm PaynoPain.
The report also confirms the advance of digital wallets, which already account for 15% of consumer preferences when booking trips and airline tickets, while bank transfers are reduced to 4% of the total.
Coinciding with the celebration of World Tourism Day, on September 27, the payment solutions company has warned that the rigidity in conditions and the limited variety of available methods lead to "immediate abandonments" in the final purchase phase of hotels, flights, and vacation packages.
The six most common mistakes in online tourist payment
In this context, PaynoPain has detected six recurring mistakes in the payment platforms of the tourism sector that result in bookings that do not get completed.
The first of these is checkout processes with too much friction, such as forcing the creation of a user account, requesting superfluous data in lengthy forms, or taking the customer away from the main page to make the payment.
To this problem is added the lack of international payment options, as foreign tourists need local methods or certain wallets, as well as the absence of clarity by not allowing payment in the traveler's home currency, which causes uncertainty due to the exchange rate or possible additional fees.
Furthermore, the company highlights the mistake of not using card tokenization, essential in accommodations to manage pre-authorizations, deposits, or subsequent charges without requiring the customer's data again. It also mentions the sluggish authentications, resulting from failures or delays in security codes, and payment gateways poorly optimized for mobile or with excessive loading times, which undermine trust in high-value transactions.
"The tourism sector makes great economic efforts to attract traffic to its websites, but often forgets that the sale is closed at the payment gateway," warned the CEO and founder of PaynoPain, Jordi Nebot, who emphasized that having a "clean, secure, and diversified" process is a necessity to avoid "losing income silently."