If the Covid pandemic has proven any axiom, it’s that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure — and if you can’t prevent or cure, insure.
Travelers are taking that lesson to heart and, as they return to cars, planes and cruise ships, they’re looking to hedge their bets by insuring trips, locking in prices and more — when, where and as easily as they can. And they’re willing to pay for that peace of mind, according to travel app Hopper.
“There’s an enormous appetite for security and stability, and customers are willing to pay for this,” said Hopper founder and CEO Frederic Lalonde.
To help meet that need, Hopper announced Tuesday it’s teaming with Amadeus to offer customers of the Madrid-based global distribution system and travel software giant its fintech insurance and price-freeze solutions via its Hopper Cloud business-to-business initiative.
Hopper describes itself as the largest North American travel app and a “mobile-first travel marketplace.”
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In return, Hopper users now have access to Amadeus’ worldwide car rental inventory via the Amadeus Travel Platform, with 40 rental companies in more than 3,500 cities in 191 countries. Montreal-based Hopper, with more than 50 million downloads and $1.2 billion in sales the past year from 2 million hotels, 300 airlines and several existing car rental partners, began using Amadeus for flight content late last year.
The expanded partnership is a natural fit, said Lalonde.
“Amadeus has huge reach; they’ve become, to my knowledge, the largest provider of travel technology in the world,” he added, noting the firm “has a network of technology and sales that powers a huge amount of this huge $2.1 trillion [travel category].”
The deal is another step in Hopper’s expansion from travel into fintech, or financial services technology. “When we started thinking of how to offer Hopper Cloud, our financial products, to everybody, there was really one name at the top of that list,” said Lalonde.
The Hopper Cloud products Amadeus is deploying include Cancel for Any Reason, which lets passengers instantly cancel any flight reservation up to 24 hours before departure and get at least 80% of the fare back, and Price Freeze, which allows travelers to hold a price for up to 14 days.