Challenge

Independent hotels across Mexico needed help: many lacked websites, and even those that had them relied mostly on third-party booking sites that charged costly fees. Without the online presence of larger hotels, these mom-and-pop businesses struggled to attract the international travelers they needed to maintain and grow their businesses.

Entrepreneur Josue Gio sought to close this gap in the hospitality industry by helping hotels build secure, professional websites with easy-to-use booking engines and integrated payment processing. He founded GuruHotel in 2020 and needed to move quickly to incorporate his startup and find technology partners to help build the platform he envisioned.

“GuruHotel’s mission was to become the Shopify for independent hotels, so they wouldn’t have to depend on online travel agencies or pay high commissions,” said Gio.

Gio knew that financial infrastructure would be key to the platform’s success. He began looking for technology that would be easy to integrate into the GuruHotel platform and accelerate the onboarding process for hotel customers. And since many visitors to Mexico come from around the world, GuruHotel needed to process transactions in multiple currencies and support different payment methods favored by international travelers. The booking system would also need to help hotels mitigate fraudulent charges, disputes, and chargebacks, as the hospitality industry is frequently targeted by fraudulent actors.

Solution

GuruHotel partnered with Stripe in 2019, using Stripe Atlas to incorporate in the US and create a Mexico-based subsidiary with just a few clicks—rather than filing papers by mail and waiting weeks for approval.

GuruHotel made Stripe its preferred payment partner—meaning that it recommended Stripe first to hotels, as the best available option for payment processing—while it also established relationships with other payment processors. The company implemented Stripe Connect to route funds from traveler bookings to the hotels that chose Stripe. Using Stripe-hosted onboarding meant that GuruHotel could rely on Stripe to manage compliance tasks such as Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) requirements when signing up new hotels.

Hotels that chose Stripe Payments as their payment processor could accept payments from more than 135 currencies. To help the hotels that chose Stripe improve their checkout flow and enable payment methods preferred by international travelers, GuruHotel also adopted Stripe’s Optimized Checkout Suite. Using the Payment Element, GuruHotel enabled international credit cards, Apple Pay, and Google Pay as payment methods. The company also added Link, a digital wallet built by Stripe, to let its hotels offer travelers an easy, faster checkout experience.

For greater protection against fraud, chargebacks, and disputes, GuruHotel added Stripe Radar for Fraud Teams—giving hotels that use Stripe on the platform a powerful solution, built with AI trained on millions of transactions. With Radar for Fraud Teams, hotels can now write custom rules based on their unique risks and needs, to prevent high-risk charges from going through.

Although focused initially on Mexico, the market its founder knew best, GuruHotel sought a global financial infrastructure that could ease its platform’s expansion into new markets when the time came.

Results

GuruHotel incorporated quickly and easily with Atlas

GuruHotel accelerated its launch by using Atlas to incorporate in the US and establish a subsidiary in Mexico. This positioned the company to accept cross-border payments while staying compliant with Mexico’s tax laws and hospitality industry regulations. With Atlas, GuruHotel gained access to Stripe’s full payment suite much more quickly than it would have by incorporating in Mexico first. For Stripe users in many other countries as well, using Atlas for US incorporation is advantageous.

“We get value from being a US company, because so many things we need start first in the US before they eventually are available in Mexico,” said Gio. “Stripe Atlas made it possible for us to have this dual presence.”

Fast Connect integration saves development time and lets GuruHotel focus on growing its business

Stripe’s API and documentation allowed GuruHotel to integrate Connect in only six weeks—much faster than the GuruHotel tech team expected. “Stripe’s API and documentation are really straightforward,” said Gio.

15-minute onboarding process sets up hotels to accept online payments quickly

With Stripe-hosted onboarding, it now takes GuruHotel only 15 minutes to onboard a new hotel onto the platform. This streamlined process saves valuable developer resources and enables properties to begin accepting payments within 24 to 48 hours.

Nearly 80% of hotels on GuruHotel are using Stripe

With Stripe established as the payment partner of choice through GuruHotel’s recommendations, approximately 80% of hotels in GuruHotel’s network have opted for Stripe as their payment provider.

“General managers at mom-and-pop hotels might not have any knowledge about APIs or connectivity, and some of them don’t even know what a payment provider is,” said Gio. “Stripe is good for them because it’s easy to use. That’s one of the main reasons we decided to use Stripe.”

Bookings on GuruHotel increased 128% to $3.5 million

With Stripe supporting the majority of its network’s payment processing, GuruHotel has grown its hospitality management network to more than 500 hotels in Mexico, the US, and the Caribbean. Since launch, bookings processed through Stripe on GuruHotel increased 128% to $3.5 million between 2024 and 2025.

Travelers patronizing smaller hotels are embracing the convenience of Link

The accelerated checkout experience with Link makes booking seamless, reducing friction and helping guests confirm reservations in just a few clicks. As of January 2025, 25% of bookings on GuruHotel are made using Link.

“Allowing customers to complete a reservation with one click is boosting conversion rates for our hotels,” said Gio. “In fact, we have shown this 25% figure to hotels hesitant to migrate their payments to Stripe, and it’s the deciding factor that convinces them.”

Hotels reduce chargebacks and disputes with Radar for Fraud Teams

Hotels using Stripe on GuruHotel that have engaged with Radar for Fraud Teams are now benefiting from a 70% decrease in chargebacks. “Radar for Fraud Teams is something we use heavily,” said Gio. “It has helped many of our hotels with blocking suspicious transactions and receiving payments from cancellations.”