Sunborn Yacht Hotel
Case Study

The Client:

Sunborn Luxury Yacht Hotel sits within the Sunborn Group, a privately owned property specialist who boast more than 30 years’ experience in the hotel, leisure and hospitality sector. As pioneers of the ‘floating hotel’ concept back in 1998, Sunborn has since created a number of bespoke yacht hotels for prestigious international locations, as well as being responsible for the development of luxury spa hotels, restaurants and other top-quality projects in Scandinavia, Germany, Spain and the UK.

Sunborn London is a Yacht Hotel S160, providing around 10,000m² of beautifully designed floorspace and incorporating elegant guest accommodation, restaurants, leisure areas, conference and events facilities. Equipped to four-star luxury standards, the yacht is tailor-made for its London mooring using the highest standards in construction, safety and technology to meet the highest specifications, providing the epitome of luxury.

The Brief:

As a market leader, Sunborn Group pride themselves on ensuring that their service standards are consistently high at every opportunity including secure payment options for their guests. Sunborn Group had therefore been looking to find a PCI DSS compliant solution for card not present transactions, in order to maximise the data security of their customers, whilst combatting the risk of fraud related chargebacks and reducing their scope for PCI DSS compliance for their luxurious hotel, situated in London Docklands.

The Solution:

Following an introduction to Gala Technology, from their acquirer partner, Sunborn London Yacht Hotel deployed our multi-award-winning SOTpay solution within their organisation, simplifying PCI DSS requirements, negating the risk of fraud related chargebacks within the Card Not Present (CNP) channels, and reducing their processing charges.

SOTpay enables Sunborn London Yacht Hotel to send secure and PCI compliant payments links via email or SMS, allowing the cardholder to remain in control of their sensitive card data and complete the transaction either in real time, whilst the agent remains in dialogue or at the cardholders own leisure.

SOTpay then notifies the required individual or department that the authenticated transaction has been completed, enabling Sunborn London Yacht Hotel to do what they do best – offering luxury and comfort.

“The deployment of the multi-award-winning SOTpay technology to allow our customers to process secure payments, is just a further indication of how deeply we care about our clients and guests. Not only do we want to provide a luxurious guest experience, we also want to ensure our guests sensitive card and personal data remains secure”

Fransisco Ventura, General Manager
Sunborn London Yacht Hotel

The Result:

Working with Gala Technology has enabled Sunborn London Yacht Hotel to process secure, authenticated and PCI compliant payments across their Card Not Present (CNP) channels.

As SOTpay uses additional authentication processes during the transaction, the payment is converted from ‘non-secure’ to ‘secure’ and processed at a favourable rate by their acquiring partner, whilst protecting them from fraud related chargebacks.

Now, instead of asking their clients to provide their payment card information, Sunborn London Yacht Hotel simply generate a secure branded payment link to their customer, which can be sent via email, SMS, or electronic invoice, enabling the customer to remain in control of their card data, whilst providing the flexibility for the cardholder to complete the transaction immediately or at their leisure.