IOU.io industry focus 2 of 4: Travel
Last week, we took a look at how the gaming industry could benefit from the confluence of ecommerce and blockchain technology. In coming posts, I’ll also take a look at the fashion industry and on-demand services. Today, though, let’s zero in on how the travel industry stands to benefit from the kind of approach the IOU.io team advocates.
Cleared for takeoff?
If you ask me, it’s a wonder the airline travel industry survived online this long without blockchain. Everything about it is a use case.
Let’s start with loyalty rewards programs. Ultimately, that’s what utility tokens are, or purport to be. I know a guy who, back in the Web 1.0 days, found sites that served as exchanges that enabled him to trade his Delta (“Don’t Expect Luggage To Arrive”) loyalty miles for USAir (“Unfortunately Subject to Accidents In Recurrence”). And, apparently, there were people on that site who were willing to pay dollars to accumulate either. Net-net, this guy accumulated enough loyalty points that he was able to sell them for enough money to buy a house.
I’m not making this up. I can document it if you really want to call baloney.
But this guy is a weekly business traveler. He was an IBM consultant at the time, so he was smart enough to figure out how to maximize his accumulation of Sky Miles and attentive enough to churn through AskJeeves or AltaVista until he found out where he could monetize them.
Imagine if a travel site had this as a feature that someone of average intelligence and travel experience and tech savvy could do the same thing.
Of course, hotel chains and discount aggregators have loyalty programs too, and wouldn’t it be nice to exchange Delta Sky Miles for Hilton Honors points or Hotwire nights?
There are, however, other ways airlines would benefit from adopting blockchain technology as part of their ecommerce processes. Billing and settlement planning is probably the most obvious. (So why hasn’t Hotels.com’s Captain Obvious figured this out yet?)
“The future of building a billing and settlement plan on top of a blockchain model, however, means advantages that cascade into the heart of operations throughout the travel industry,” according to Further Network’s sponsored content on travel industry intelligence site Skift. “Blockchain solutions bring the real-world, real-time potential of lower transaction costs and better profit margins to travel organizations in all verticals.”
Further Network, which is promoting the ICO of its ATON token, goes on to drill down into how that can happen.
Travel industry blogger Martijn Barten also identifies luggage tracking and traveler identification as ways in which airlines would benefit from blockchain adoption. He also identifies no less than six distributed ledger companies that are already filling these niches.
Vacancy signs
Clearly, this space is still evolving but the entire travel industry — hospitality and car rental as well as airlines — is starting to pay attention to blockchain. And some startups are emerging as leading purveyors.
The one getting the most press right now is DarexTravel, which is leveraging its DART token to provide a payment solution that mimics such aggregator sites as Expedia or Travelocity.
Vancouver-based CozyStay is basically an AirBnB clone for Chinese visitors to North America. These travelers don’t want to give out any more information about themselves than they absolutely have to for passport control, and they might wish to transact in cryptocurrency rather than greenbacks or looneys. Interestingly, I get all this from a report on CozyStay on the Business Vancouver website. As far as I can tell, CozyStay’s own site doesn’t even mention blockchain or cryptocurrency, and only obliquely mentions renters’ privacy concerns.
A more aggressive marketing campaign has been launched by LockTrip. It claims to offer at least 2% less per room at more than 100,000 hotels worldwide than you could get through any legacy travel site. All you have to do is buy LOC utility tokens, which seem to be in a tight trading range between $0.55 and $0.60.
Travel plans
The secret to a successful blockchain travel company launch has not yet been revealed, but there’s certainly going to be more than one winner.
Just take a look at how diversified the existing travel industry is. There are aggregator sites that do nothing but aggregate other aggregators. And although Uber and Lyft have almost put yellow taxis out of business in some cities, AirBnB hasn’t done the same to hotel chains — or even to independent, boutique lodgings. Of course, every time an airline’s salaries and benefits gain in proportion to its success, a new “no-frills” airline will scale up and offer the same routes with much cheaper fares. And so far, nobody in the crypto-asset community has really elbowed their way into car rentals, guided tours, intercity bus or sightseeing destination markets.
So who knows? Maybe blockchain will disrupt the existing travel industry, or maybe this’ll be one of those occasions when the legacy businesses adopt the new technology before some upstart beats them to it.
Edward W. Mandel is a strategic advisor for IOU.io , he is an Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist, Blockchain Enthusiast and visionary behind many successful organizations. An avid entrepreneur, Edward has a knack for designing distinctive business models complemented with superior technology to deliver unparalleled service and profitability. Edward also has been advising and consulting for various successful Blockchain technology and ICO projects and recently launched his own BQT.io P2P Hedge Exchange helping traders connect with each other to leverage their crypto assets.
IOU is a blockchain-based peer-to-peer platform designed to unify ecommerce transaction and customer retention processes, incorporating trade-able IOUs. It is currently raising capital through ICO. The platform can be found online at IOU.io and its community on Telegram at https://t.me/IOUCommunity.
