QC Terme: An oasis for innovative payments

The northern end of the island houses the latest addition to the Italian hospitality chain’s suite of spas, thermal centers, and hotels. It’s a place where an enchanting, fully immersive spa experience lets guests relax, revive, and restore.

QC Terme started using Adyen to accept online payments in 2020. With locations in Italy, France, and now in New York City, they wanted to innovate with payment solutions that would enhance their guests’ experience by making payments seamless. They adopted Adyen terminals across all of their properties in 2021 to do just that.

Learn more about Adyen and QC Terme’s global partnership from QC Terme USA CEO, Janine DiGioacchino and QC Terme CTO, Gabriele Cafaro.

From the mountainous beauty of QC Terme Dolomiti and QC Terme Chamonix, to the urban sanctuaries of QC Termemilano and QC Termetorino, to now the island oasis of QC NY, the hospitality chain gives guests the opportunity to get a break from their daily life.

Since pulling out a wallet at the spa can easily get in the way of the emotional escape QC Terme wants to offer, they were looking for a way to make payments invisible. Partnering with Adyen enables QC Terme to offer unified payment experiences that enhance the customer journey from check-in until check-out.

QC Terme wanted to remove the need to bring a smartphone or wallet into a hot, wet, and steamy environment for the QC NY spa. It was critical to allow customers to relax and pay for additional services and food without worry.

Looking for a way to use wearable technology, they decided that Adyen’stokenizationwould allow them to use wristbands as a payment method on their premises. ThroughNFC technology,credit card details can be added and tokenized to enable contactless payments.

From the moment they check in, guests can use their wristband in the spa or at the Flora Café, an open-air floral-themed eating area on the property.

“By completely disconnecting the payment method from the need to carry an object, we have also removed another possible friction point in the experience.” - says Gabriele.

While QC Terme has turned to wearable payments in North America, they use different tokenization solutions in Europe. There, QR codes let guests add on services at different kiosks stationed around the spa.

“Having an international clientele makes it easy for us to analyze guest habits, and it is evident that there is a greater inclination for Millennials and Zoomers to accept this kind of innovation.” - says Gabriele.

Differences in payment habits in Europe and North America necessitate different services. With Adyen’s integrated solutions, QC Terme can keep innovating for their global clientele.

It’s one thing to want to integrate wearable payments into your luxury hospitality ecosystem, it’s another for the integration to be smooth. With our single platform, QC Terme is able to be hands-on with their implementation and have easy access to their API’s.

One thing that I really appreciated is that I have a totally flexible sandboxing environment, and I can test, I can play and once I switch to production, everything is just fine.” - elaborates Gabriele.

Adyen’s single platform solution connects QC Terme’s online and in-person payments into one system, thereby unifying their customers’ payments data. This helps to streamline backend operations while providing access to valuable cross-channel insights.

With QC Terme's booking platform, online payments and on-property payments all connected, they can understand their clientele better, recognize spending behavior, and administrate their technology to best cater to their and their customer's needs.

“You have the flexibility to create and to integrate as you want. And in the end everything goes back to the finance and to the administration and control of QC Terme. I don't have to differentiate my data flows from my processes in order to abide by specific partners with things to do.” - adds Gabriele.

Now that QC Terme successfully integrated wearable payments for QC NY, they are considering using wristbands in Europe as well. While Gabriele acknowledges that there will be challenges, he considers Adyen an asset on the journey.

“Adyen is supporting us, providing us hints, suggestions about how we could use the latest technologies in order to have wearable payments also in Italy. Our decision will be based on how the business will evolve and how to extend the experience. But Adyen is a good partner for that.”

QC Terme is stepping boldly into the future of payments, with Adyen by their side in Europe and North America, the guest experience will only get better.