Revolut’s new travel booking feature, Stays.
Revol
LONDON – European fintech giant Revolut is jumping into the travel industry.
The London-based company launched a new feature called Stays on Tuesday, which allows users to book hotels and other accommodations through their app.
Customers can get up to 10% cashback on bookings made through Revolut, the company said.
The move presents a challenge for travel giants like Booking Holdings, Expedia and TripAdvisor. It is also the company’s first product to hit the market outside of finance.
“As the world opens up, we know that everyone is desperately trying to get away whenever they can – whether to Margate or Mallorca,” said Marsel Nikaj, Revolut’s head of savings and lifestyle.
“We developed stays to make it easy for people to find and book their perfect vacation in their ideal destination. After 18 months of endless restrictions and bans, we want to give people more and let their money travel on. “
Revolut began in 2015 as a purely digital banking and payments platform for spending abroad without paying high exchange rate fees. Since then, the company has expanded its offering and introduced new features for trading stocks and cryptocurrencies.
The company is one of several popular “neobanks” that have sprung up in Europe and other parts of the world, attracting mostly younger customers with a sleek user experience and colorful bank cards.
Rivals include Monzo and Starling in the UK, N26 in Germany and Chime in the US
Last week, Revolut was valued at $ 33 billion in a monster financing round, making it the UK’s leading fintech start-up and the second largest fintech in Europe. The company has 16 million users worldwide.
Revolut aims to become a so-called “super app” that offers several services via one interface. The trend has gained momentum in Asia and has been popularized by companies like Grab and GoTo in Southeast Asia and Alibaba and Tencent in China.
Revolut’s Stays feature will be rolled out in the UK for the first time on Tuesday, before rolling out to Europe and the US in the coming months. It will only offer accommodations for now, but plans to include flights, rental cars, and other travel options later.
It is because some European countries are tightening restrictions on public life for fears of a resurgence of Covid cases. In stark contrast, England lifted almost all remaining coronavirus restrictions on Monday.
