Stablecoins are quietly transforming the landscape of travel payments. Trip.com recently launched an interesting feature: booking hotels and purchasing flights directly with USDT and USDC, all within just 10 minutes, saving 18% on transaction fees. This sounds like a proof of concept, but it reflects a real issue—the inefficiency of cross-border payments.

Traditional cross-border payment processes are cumbersome, costly, and have long settlement times, issues that have troubled the travel industry for years. The emergence of stablecoins offers an alternative: multi-chain deployment (supporting Ethereum, Tron, and other public chains), third-party payment integrations (Trip.com partnering with Singapore-licensed Triple-A), and even GrabPay users can top up with crypto assets directly. The three key concerns for users—speed (real-time settlement), cost (significantly reduced fees), and privacy (no need to submit full identity information)—are all improved within this system.

It’s worth noting that Ctrip is not acting alone. PayPal is developing stablecoin issuance, Ant Group is promoting the Hong Kong dollar stablecoin, and manufacturing giants like BYD and Toyota are involved. Even commercial dealers in Bolivia have started settling with USDT. This indicates that stablecoins have evolved from "niche experiments" into a part of the global payment infrastructure.

However, challenges remain. On-chain transaction fees can fluctuate significantly (differences of up to 2x across different wallets and chains), compliance risks are still prominent (e.g., purchasing flights still requires passport information), and the ambitions of large platforms are worth watching—many institutions aim to be issuers of stablecoins rather than just users.

What will be the future of Trip.com’s experiment? Will it be a true turning point in the travel payment ecosystem, or just a fleeting moment under policy risks? The key lies in how the regulatory framework for stablecoins gradually improves and whether user experience can continue to be optimized.