Tourism and Blockchain

“See the world. It’s more fantastic than any other dream made or paid for in factories. Ask for no guarantees, ask for no security.” — Ray Bradbury.

Tourism is an industry that has the background to stay eternal. People travel for pleasure, relaxation, recreation, vacation, discovery, exploration, to understand culture and so forth. Hence, tourism can be defined as an industry that organizes and operates — visits or holidays of interest with regards to places. Wherein, blockchain technology is a system that records all the information in-stored or listed constituting of a decentralized, distributed and public ledger on a peer-to-peer network. Blockchain technology is used and can be used in various different industries. Its use in tourism can bring the travel and technology together with great exposure, growth and stability to rank the position of the tourism industry higher.

Tourism benefiting from Blockchain:

1. Consumers have grown smart in the world of digitalization. Tourist before making any purchase makes sure that they are well-versed in advance about the product or the service. Online review by the customers helps the potential customers to be influenced towards their decision and they tend to consider the reviews as an honest opinion. Blockchain being decentralised helps tourism sector perceive a review and rating system transparent and traceable as the entries consist of unique private key for every individual which ensures no manipulation to create duplicate reviews.
2. Tourism involves transfer of money across countries and amongst businesses. Intermediaries, middlemen and the transaction cost overseas affect the costing of the industry for the customer and company both, however, blockchain can benefit transactional security and cost-efficiency due to the feature that it holds.
3. Cryptocurrency is also backed by blockchain technology which can be utilised in the tourism industry for the transactions and exchanges.
4. In the tourism industry, details of the tourists’ needs be passed amongst the travel agents, hotels, flight companies and so on, blockchain helps to access and store the information easily and also in a reliable manner across the entire network.
5. Tracking luggage especially during international network is vital and can be very hectic, also many times during the boarding process, luggage has been misplaced. A decentralised database can help the tracking luggage process a lot easier, efficient and reliable.
6. Identification process such as check-in or long queues can be managed enormously as blockchain has the potential capacity to store the information at a reduced time.
7. Loyalty card is a great and a beneficial approach to keep the customers engaged. Blockchain can facilitate the concept by allowing the customers to check their loyalty points scored, enabling them to distribute tokens and also allowing them to turn the points into cryptocurrency.

Examples of Blockchain Technology in many-related sectors:

1. Lockchain: It is a direct market for hotels and hospitality companies wherein one is looking to rent the property. This platform consists of property management, payment, booking and so forth.
2. BeeToken / Beenest: It is a home-sharing platform where the customers are made in touch with the hosts that will help to arrange and pay for the stays.
3. Winding Tree: It facilitates baggage tracking through blockchain and also consist of the element of the booking. The inadequacy of third-party involvement leads to that the tracking and booking is attainable, safe, easy, accessible, transparent and secured. The elimination of the middlemen helps reduces the pricing of upto 20%.
4. ShoCard and SITA: It is a collaborative project that has utilized blockchain for identity management. However, it hopes to also provide an environment for decentralised ID database for quick and easy access and procedural method.
5. TUI Bed-Swap: It has its own in-house blockchain project that refers to ‘Bed-Swap’, with the help of this technology the company can move inventories amongst varied points of sale and flex selling margins based on the level of demand in the real-time.
6. Trippki: It strives to create a loyalty program with the help of blockchain technology. It aids the customers and the companies to connect and contact directly and assign customer tokens for staying.

Any tour with any company at any place is expected to be soothing than a hectic mess. Tourism with the blend of blockchain technology can cut down and alter various slowed and laid back methods previously used in the industry. It can bring a status quo with a new modernization and experience a new venture in the world of tourism