Senior Specialist - OTA & Payments
The Senior Specialist – OTA & Payments is responsible for optimizing Jazeera Airways’ indirect online distribution (OTAs, aggregators, and meta-search platforms) to drive direct bookings while managing regional payment integrations to ensure seamless, localized customer transactions.
This role focuses on maximizing direct booking conversions, ensuring that OTA collaborations contribute to rather than compete against Jazeera Airways' owned channels. Additionally, the role will improve payment success rates, optimize currency acceptance, and integrate alternative payment methods to enhance customer convenience and revenue growth.
The ideal candidate will have strong expertise in OTA partnerships, digital distribution, online payment processing, and transaction security.
Responsibilities and Duties:
OTA & Meta-Search Strategy – Driving Direct Bookings
- Develop and manage strategic partnerships with OTAs, aggregators, and meta-search platforms to drive indirect bookings while increasing direct channel visibility.
- Implement OTA redirection strategies to ensure traffic from third-party platforms converts into direct bookings.
- Monitor fare integrity, competitive pricing, and Look-to-Book (L2B) ratios to minimize revenue loss from fare undercutting by OTAs.
- Optimize OTA presence through collaborations, tactical campaigns, and exclusive offers, ensuring these efforts support, not cannibalize, direct sales.
- Leverage data insights from OTAs, aggregators, and meta-search platforms to refine Jazeera Airways’ direct booking strategy and audience targeting.
Regional Payment Integration & Optimization
- Manage and expand payment gateway partnerships, ensuring customers have access to localized and preferred payment options in each region.
- Integrate and optimize alternative payment methods such as digital wallets, UPI, BNPL (Buy Now, Pay Later), and region-specific banking solutions.
- Improve payment success rates by analyzing and reducing transaction failures caused by fraud detection, currency issues, or technical inefficiencies.
- Work closely with IT, finance, and risk teams to implement secure, scalable, and frictionless payment solutions.
- Track and optimize multi-currency acceptance, ensuring dynamic pricing and local currency availability to improve conversions.
Enhancing Direct Channel Performance through Payments & Distribution
- Identify and address customer drop-off points in the payment and booking journey, implementing solutions to reduce cart abandonment and increase conversion rates.
- Collaborate with the digital marketing team to implement real-time payment offers, loyalty-based discounts, and payment-linked promotions to encourage direct bookings.
- Ensure a seamless checkout experience by integrating one-click payments, saved card options, and subscription-based payment models.
- Monitor and analyze transaction data, providing actionable insights to improve direct booking conversion rates and customer experience.
Fraud Prevention & Compliance
- Implement secure transaction protocols to minimize fraud, chargebacks, and unauthorized transactions.
- Ensure PCI-DSS compliance and adherence to local regulatory requirements for secure payment processing.
- Collaborate with payment fraud detection systems and AI-driven security tools to prevent fraudulent activities and reduce risk exposure.
OTA & Payment Data Analytics & Reporting
- Track and report on OTA booking trends, direct conversion uplift from meta-search redirections, and regional payment performance.
- Provide insights on customer payment behaviour across markets, recommending adjustments for optimized conversion strategies.
- Utilize Adobe Analytics and payment provider dashboards to analyze checkout abandonment rates, payment success metrics, and transaction trends.
Requirements and Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Business Administration, E-Commerce, Digital Marketing, or a related field.
- 5+ years of experience in OTA distribution, online payments, digital transactions, or airline e-commerce.
- Strong knowledge of OTA and meta-search platform operations, with a track record of driving direct channel conversions.
- Hands-on expertise in payment gateway integration, transaction optimization, and multi-currency payment strategies.
- Proven experience in fraud prevention, payment security, and regulatory compliance.
- Ability to work cross-functionally with finance, IT, digital marketing, and sales teams.
