This collaboration will see BR-DGE become Glasgow-based Brooklyn Travel’s sole payments orchestrator, streamlining transactions and enhancing payment options across its diverse portfolio of travel brands.

BR-DGE’s solution will maintain connectivity with Brooklyn Travel’s existing payment partners while enabling new acquiring connections for increased resilience. It will also introduce popular payment methods like instalments and pay-by-bank options. The move allows Brooklyn Travel to offer a consistent and modern payment experience across its brands, which include CruiseKings, Stewart Travel, and Destinology.

The partnership between BR-DGE and Brooklyn Travel is primed to prosper from the huge bounce back in global airline, cruise and hotel bookings. According to the World Travel & Tourism Council, 2024 is set to be a record-breaking year, with travel and tourism’s global economic contribution set to reach an all-time high of $11.1 trillion (c. £9tn). According to Mastercard research, despite ongoing economic pressures, the travel sector is flourishing, with nine out of the last 10 record-setting spending days in the global cruise and airline industry occurring during 2024.

BR-DGE, experiencing significant growth itself after a 600% revenue increase in 2023, is solidifying its position as a payment orchestrator for the travel sector. This deal follows similar partnerships with travel giants like Kenwood Travel and Travel Counsellors.

Tom Voaden, VP of Commercial at BR-DGE, said: “We’re proud that a fellow Scottish success story like Brooklyn Travel has chosen us at this pivotal point in their growth journey.

“Travel is bouncing back in a big way, but with volumes rising, and customers demanding more payment choice, business growth can mean more payment integrations, complexities and pressures to manage. For businesses that have inherited a multitude of different tech stacks, it’s crucial to provide consistency in platform resilience, and the same seamless checkout experience to customers, no matter which travel brand they’re buying from.”

He added: “From payment processing to fraud monitoring, smart routing and hybrid tokenisation services, BR-DGE’s payment orchestration pulls together all of these moving parts together to give travel platforms simplified integrations, more interoperability, speed to market, enhanced CX and new growth opportunities.

“We’re experiencing huge demand from travel businesses and enterprise merchants who recognise how our orchestration layers are creating new value, more business opportunities, and happier end customers.”

Duncan Wilson, CEO at Brooklyn Travel, said: “For more than 50 years, Brooklyn Travel has been helping our customers to explore the world through a growing array of brands tailored to differing travel experiences.

“We’ve come a long way over that time, having acquired several brands to widen the choice of travel experiences to our loyal customers, and a growing number of new customers too. At this exciting time in our journey, we needed a payment partner who could help us modernise, innovate, and support the ways our customers want to pay.

“We’ve found the perfect partner in BR-DGE, who will not only ensure connectivity to our existing acquirers but quickly facilitate new acquirers as well, along with enhanced platform resilience, and improved checkout experiences that can evolve with customer demand.”