Uber plans to help international tourists coming to the U.S. for the FIFA World Cup this summer by installing kiosks at airports, hotels and ports. The kiosks enable visitors to book and pay for a ride even if they don’t have the Uber app or a local data plan for their smartphone.
The first kiosk was installed in December at LaGuardia Airport in New York City. Similar to the phone app, the kiosk asks the user for their destination and ride preference. The kiosk accepts credit card payments and prints a receipt for the driver to scan. More kiosks will be rolled out in the coming months, according to Uber.
Uber partners with Adyen, a global financial technology platform, on this and other payment methods internationally. The companies announced an expanded partnership today, adding new services in the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong and the Caribbean and expanding in Japan, Mexico and other countries.
Adyen also enables the 1.2 billion users of WeChat Pay, a China-based mobile payment system, to pay for their Uber ride in the U.S. “You have a lot of folks from Asia coming over for the World Cup in Canada, [the] U.S. and Mexico, who will be taking advantage of WeChat Pay,” said Trevor Nies, senior vice president and global head of digital at Adyen.
Eleven U.S. cities will host World Cup matches in June and July. Between 1 million and 6 million visitors are expected to come to the U.S. for the World Cup, boosting international arrivals by nearly a third, Reuters reported.
Cities have been preparing for the World Cup by addressing public safety and cybersecurity issues. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority published a playbook for transit agencies to “serve as a guide for elected officials and host committees to help them understand the critical transportation practices that will need to be deployed to make their event world class,” LA Metro said.
Nies said Uber’s goal is to “make payments frictionless for the end user, and that's where they lean on to us to help them partner and co-develop their designs on how they implement that.”
