Blockchain has successfully made its foray into the travel and tourism industry. Enabling cryptocurrency transactions and efficient loyalty programs for tourism companies, Blockchain technology is now being used for creating Non-fungible Tokens (NFTs) of physical tourism assets such as resorts. What’s more, once the much-anticipated Metaverse is up and running, Blockchain will play a crucial role in the creation of digital avatars of popular travel destinations.
With a wide range of possible uses, it’s no wonder that Blockchain is being rapidly adopted by leading luxury tourism brands.
The next round of digital transformation of Tourism will be Blockchain-driven, which will expand this market even further.
Recognizing the sheer scope of this technology early on, many companies have already started designing Blockchain-enabled solutions targeted towards tourists and travelers.
- Air France has introduced a Blockchain-enabled health passport—ICC AOKpass. Through this app, passengers can present their negative COVID-19 reports, by using their smartphones.
- A member of the Blockchain Research Institute, Delta Airlines are replacing SkyMiles with cryptocurrency, for more efficient services.
- British Airways has invested and started working with Zamna—a company that is leveraging Blockchain technology in its facial recognition solutions.
What Blockchain Technology Can Do for the Tourism and Travel Industry?
We have only just begun to scratch the surface of using Blockchain in the Tourism and Travel Industry. While some revolutionary Blockchain-enabled surfaces have already fetched great results, others are yet to be meaningfully implemented and tested.
Let us look at some of the most promising opportunities for Blockchain in Travel and Tourism that can potentially alleviate a lot of the issues currently troubling the industry.
Accessing Travel Information
With Blockchain technology, tourists can access a wide range of information, such as their travel movements, visits to certain destinations, and even their purchases, from one location. Similar data across multiple providers can be synced. This means, that a tourist can interact with a single portal to manage all their bookings, accommodation, tickets, itineraries, and so on, which vastly simplifies the process.
Enhancing Loyalty Programs
Blockchain can help create decentralized loyalty programs. With loyalty points across various providers calculated immediately after transactions, customers get immediate updates to their loyalty point balances, earned through multiple modes like credit card transactions, air travel, purchases, and so on. They can then redeem those points by making other purchases.
Making Payments
Although the travel and tourism industry has been making use of online payments for a long time now, such payments often come with additional transaction charges. With Blockchain-enabled cryptocurrency transactions, which work on a peer-to-peer basis, all intermediaries are done away with, significantly reducing additional costs. An added benefit is the high level of security provided by cryptocurrencies.
Revamping Contractual Settlements
The travel and tourism industry can also leverage Blockchain-driven Smart Contracts for its supply chain management processes, simplifying settlements between operators. Smart contracts are computer protocols that deal with the negotiation or performance of a contract in terms of its facilitation, verification, or enforcement. Once the terms of a smart contract are met, it is executed automatically.
Smart Contracts have the potential to revolutionize the operations of tourism service providers and online travel agencies. All monetary settlements would be made based on terms that are already agreed upon, doing away with the possibility of retroactive changes in the contract.
Collecting and Storing Customer Data
Heavily reliant on repeat customers, the travel and tourism industry places high importance on customer data. With Blockchain technology, organizations can easily collect, store, and verify data from customers, with their consent.
Solving the Problem of Overbooking
Double-booking is an issue that has plagued the Travel and Tourism industry for a long time. Blockchain-enabled booking solutions would inherently eliminate any redundancies in bookings.
Improving the Tracking of Baggage
Events of luggage lost by airlines have ruined many a vacation. Using a Blockchain-driven solution could eliminate this issue once and for all. Such a system would provide a shared, distributed ledger to all personnel who handle the baggage at the airport, while automatically logging the baggage, ownership, and destination details.
Upgrading the Identification Process
The level of security and privacy inherent to Blockchain technology can revolutionize the process of customer identification throughout the various phases of a typical journey.
Providing Better Care
Blockchain-based solutions can make it easier to predict the way a company’s risk management system provides access to a customer’s real-time location. In addition, Blockchain network-based medical records could prove to be lifesaving during medical emergencies while traveling.
Complying with Policy Mandates
Real-time notifications of policy breaches, provided by a Blockchain-based solution could help Travel and Tourism companies ensure compliance, and maintain safety and security during travels.
Final Thoughts
Resolving the most common issues of Travel and Tourism, while also opening avenues for better security, efficiency, and management, Blockchain is already proving itself as a game-changer for the industry.
How the industry players choose to leverage the technology and its many benefits is anyone’s guess; but once Blockchain has broken into the industry, it’s here to stay. Industry leaders must realize that while dealing with Blockchain and its effects on the industry, it would always fare better to be a pioneer than a follower.
Leverage Blockchain to develop ground-breaking tourism solutions. Reach out to us to know more.
Be the first to comment