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Travel industry is highly targeted by fraud, report says

Wednesday 21 February 2018 00:45 CET | News

A global study commissioned by eNett International has revealed that travel companies are being highly targeted by fraud, costing travel intermediaries nearly USD 21 billion.

The total cost of fraud includes direct losses (USD 6 billion), as well as indirect costs (USD 15 billion) such as higher operating expenses and reputational damage. Driven by a rise in the volume of travel, and a shift by consumers towards online bookings, it is expected to exceed USD 25 billion by 2020. Online Travel Agents are expected to be worst hit, with an expected loss of nearly USD 11 billion globally.

A global survey of travel intermediaries, carried out as part of the study, found that fraud is a concern for 60% of companies when making payments to suppliers. Key findings include:

• The three most common types of fraud cited in relation to making payments to suppliers are stolen payment method details, cyber breach of online booking platform and stolen security credentials;
• 29% of respondents identified foreign credit cards as the highest fraud risk when receiving payments;
• 35% identified receiving payments online as the channel with the highest risk;
• Indirect costs of fraud are approximately 2.5x the value of direct losses.

The research was carried out by Edgar, Dunn & Company in November 2017 – January 2018, including interviews with 213 travel intermediaries across the world, and targeted expert interviews.


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Keywords: fraud, report, survey, eNett, security, Edgar, Dunn & Company, online booking
Categories: Fraud & Financial Crime
Companies:
Countries: World
This article is part of category

Fraud & Financial Crime