The popularity of cryptocurrencies, let alone Bitcoin, is nothing new. You switch to your television or the newspaper for your morning dose of financial news, and you will surely be confronted by cryptocurrencies in some way or the other. Whether you agree to the legitimacy of this technology or not, whether you believe that the entire crypto thing is real or that something that does not have a physical form is possibly not worth that much, the blockchain technology is here to stay, and not only that, it is percolating to various spaces in the money-making industry.
Manufacturing is the fastest growing sector in the world. Right after that comes the travel industry. According to a survey done by the World Travel and Tourism Council, it has also been seen that the total growth in the travel industry is at times more than 0.7% than the total growth in global GDP. The nature of the travel industry is that it provides itself with the scope to evaluate and extend its growth process by incorporating and integrating new technologies and solutions. It looks for new finds that will just act as an aid to the work that the industry is set to pull off. This is where introducing blockchain technology to the travel industry proves to be beneficial as cryptocurrencies can speed up the travel arena and make the travelling experience far more comfortable. Let us get into some interesting details.
Here is a list of issues that the travel industry faces, and how blockchain technology tackles them:
- Fraudulent Cases
Wrongful refunds and chargebacks are often a problem in this industry. So, merchants are exposed to a high risk of financial losses, which in turn affects the parity of the entire system. With cryptocurrency in a blockchain, a person cannot reverse a payment once they have initiated it. This feature will cut down on fraudulent cases.
- Problem with Settlements
Blockchain permits the fast movement of money. This means, money transfers will be real-time, there will be instant settlements and because blockchain is a peer-to-peer network, there will be constant streamlined auditing. All of these will bring in a positive impact as far as the travel industry is concerned.
- Overbooking
Blockchain technology is known to block double-spending. Overlaying of bookings is a major problem in this sector. Hence, blockchain in the travel industry, with proper implementation should eliminate the problem of double booking.
- Reputation and identity
Centralization in banking and meaningless interference of these institutions is a major reason behind billions of people remaining disconnected from the threshold of the global economy. Decentralization goes hand-in-hand with cryptocurrencies, thus enabling all these people to get access to financial services and connecting with the rest of the world. This also means being on a blockchain network will automatically prove the identity of a person with the help of reputation-based identity systems. Vigorous checking of personal details by bank officials will also become a thing of the past. All of these will help more people to access the travel industry without any meaningless reputation or identity-related complexities.
- Security
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are founded on cryptography that is essentially a computer language. All transactions are there on the decentralized ledger with timestamps, so practically all that data can never be tampered with. A transaction is only complete when it is rightfully verified by all the peers on a particular network. Therefore, planning a tour with physical currency in your pockets is rather riskier than leaving it to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to sort out your travel plans.
What is the future?
You might make the best use of blockchain technology in the travel sector by starting with creating your wallet in https://bitphone.net/. The travel industry is seeming to be coping up with the entire concept of digital money. Those who have moved to crypto already may very well get the rewards it has to offer especially in the travel sector, in due time.