Selfbook Partners with PayPal to Integrate PayPal, Venmo, and BNPL Payments into Hotel Bookings
Selfbook, a hotel booking technology provider focused on AI-driven commerce solutions, has selected PayPal as its new commerce partner. The integration will allow travelers booking hotels through Selfbook to pay using PayPal and Venmo, access exclusive rates, and leverage ’Buy Now, Pay Later’ (BNPL) options across many hotel brands. Selfbook’s network of hotels will be featured on the PayPal app’s Offers tab, increasing exposure and traffic for participating hotels. The partnership aims to simplify and streamline the checkout experience—leveraging conversational AI, including the Perplexity platform, to help users discover, book, and pay within agentic chats. PayPal’s enterprise payments infrastructure will handle all direct card processing for Selfbook, further enhancing payment efficiency and security. The companies cite data showing that PayPal’s presence at checkout increases conversion rates by an average of 84% for online travel purchases. For hotels, the collaboration offers higher profitability via direct consumer outreach through PayPal’s Offers, bypassing commission fees and giving hotels more control over their brand and pricing. This partnership positions both companies at the forefront of digital wallet integration and AI-powered, direct-to-consumer travel booking.
Bullish
The integration of PayPal, Venmo, and BNPL services into Selfbook’s AI-driven hotel booking platform demonstrates growing mainstream adoption of digital wallets and payment technologies in the travel sector. Such moves historically help legitimize digital payment ecosystems, increase user engagement, and attract new user segments. The partnership also promotes PayPal-backed solutions in agentic AI commerce—suggesting rising utility and relevance of crypto-wallets for real-world transactions. In the short term, positive sentiment around digital wallet ecosystem stocks or tokens may increase, while in the long run, successful integrations like this could pave the way for further crypto or blockchain-based payment options in travel, likely leading to greater industry adoption.