Visa and the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) have announced their intent to explore a collaboration aimed at enhancing tourism discovery and digital commerce experiences in India. The announcement was made at the Global Fintech Festival 2026.
The proposed collaboration will bring together Visa’s expertise in trusted digital commerce and discovery experiences with ONDC’s open network infrastructure. The two organisations will explore ways to simplify how travellers discover experiences, itineraries and tourism offerings across the country.
The initiative aims to make tourism discovery more seamless and accessible, while helping travellers connect with destinations, experiences and local businesses across India.
Suresh Sethi, Group Country Manager, India & South Asia, Visa said, “India has its own homegrown digital public infrastructure creating opportunities for digital commerce, and we realise that tourism can be a very important asset where ONDC can serve as the digital infrastructure for tourism in the country. Everything related to tourism, whether discovering experiences, cities or travel itineraries, as well as small and medium businesses of the ecosystem can potentially be housed in one place. ONDC brings the trust of a homegrown India digital public infrastructure, while Visa brings trusted discovery experiences.”
Hrushikesh Mehta, Chief Business Officer, Financial Services, ONDC said, “Tourism is an important opportunity for us. We have support from the Ministry of Tourism and Culture to help build the tourism track and help drive tourism in the country. But you also need strong demand-side participation. We are very keen to work with Visa to see what we can do together to make that happen and help connect travellers with the diverse experiences that India has to offer.”
As part of the exploration, Visa and ONDC will evaluate opportunities to use open network principles, trusted commerce and digital innovation to create richer tourism discovery experiences. The collaboration will also look at ways to support tourism participation across destinations, regions and local economies through an open and trusted digital ecosystem.
The initiative aligns with India’s broader ambition of making tourism more accessible and creating stronger digital connections between travellers, destinations and local businesses.
