This is part two of a two part article about the problems faced by the broader tourism sector and how the Tryvium Company LTD aims to solve them with blockchain technology. If you missed the first part, it is available here: https://www.publish0x.com/tryvium-smart-travel-blog/tourism-unleashed-tryvium-blockchain-part-1-xrgeoe
In the previous article we talked about the fantastic past performance of the tourism industry, its expected future performance and how blockchain could augment this sector by additional several $100 billion.
We have established that the current OTAs are the reason for this unrealized profit and how blockchain will help solve this.
The “other” problem
Despite the hefty fees, OTAs are providing a very valuable and necessary service. They are solving the problem of arbitrating supply and demand. But too often such a service is considered as the alpha and omega, the ultimate service and the only one needed (this fallacy applies to many industries). However, the hospitality services providers also face very serious problems with bookkeeping, recordkeeping and providing real time notifications and transparency to their clients as well as to their governing legislative authorities.
These are all architectural issues which stem from the fact that hospitality services providers have to use numerous platforms to conduct their business. The issue becomes clear if we name just a few of them:
- Minimum 2-3 OTAs
- Minimum 3 different permanent processes
- Supplies ordering system
- Internal record keeping system
- Bookkeeping system for the governing legislative authority
- Multiple different channels for communicating with clients
This is causing a large overhead for the hospitality services providers and giving them larger risk of running into legislative problems due to incomplete books. Especially small businesses suffer from this because they can not afford specialized systems for joining these tasks.
Not only does this manifest in financial losses and unrealized profits, but it also manifest in lower variety of services on the market because new businesses (and established businesses trying new venues) need more capital and man power to survive.
Solution - the Tryvium Platform - an All-in-One suite
Because the Tryvium platform is based on the blockchain technology it is inherently suited for solving the record and bookkeeping problems. And knowing these problems personally, the Tryvium Company LTD team has been working from day one to turn the Tryvium Platform not just into another OTA but into a perfect All-in-One suite for all hospitality services providers.
Technically speaking the All-in-One suite is a separate, standalone software that anyone can use. However it is designed to be integrated with the Tryvium Platform and to function on the blockchain. Thus to use all its features, like advanced recordkeeping, hoteliers will want to use all three parts together, as a fully self-contained ecosystem.
In the first stage of the Tryvium Platform, only bookings paid for via smart contract capable cryptocurrencies will automatically be logged on to the blockchain. However in stage 2, all bookings, even ones made with standard fiat wire transfer will be converted to blockchain form. The letter will serve as an indisputable proof of payment, not just to the buyer and the seller but also to the legal authorities - for tax and other purposes.
Thus tax filings will be fully automated and should be error-proof.
The same underlying system will enable travelers and hoteliers real-time insight into the status of their booking/listing. As well as accurate and uncensorable feedback, which will greatly reduce the number of disputes between the parties and expedite resolution of the disputes which will still occur.
For hoteliers it also means they will be able to handle them efficiently, within the All-in-one system.
Perhaps even more important features are that chargebacks and all notifications will be carried out automatically at the appropriate times and conditions. This will not only significantly reduce hoteliers’ workload, but also increase customer satisfaction and improve their overall experience.
Bonus feature
Due to the blockchain technology, Tryvium will also be able to offer transferable vacation packages - so called gift-boxes. Due to a myriad of personal information and legislative requirements involved in travel, it was so far quite difficult to buy vacations as a gift for someone else. But with all bookings registered on the blockchain, transferring them person-to-person will now be almost as easy as handing them a traditional gift card.
This will happen in the second stage of the Tryvium Platform, where we will also integrate decentralized identity mechanisms and we will gradually decentralize by offering public registry smart contracts which everybody will be able to connect to. Thus you will be able to aggregate information from Tryvium registries into other services, just like Ethereum is publicly accessible and you can use myetherwallet or another tool.
In this second stage all the smart contracts code will be released under a free software license, following the true spirit of blockchains.
Scalability
Tourism is a high volume industry, where bookings are counted in 100’s of millions (in 2018 hotels alone registered 641 million users - source), which makes many in the cryptosphere concerned about chain congestion. This fear is a remnant of the 2017 scaling war.
Tryvium is based on the Syscoin blockchain as SPT (Syscoin platform Token), which has a throughput of 60 000 transactions per second (TPS). Thus any fears over congestion and concerns over scalability are unfounded.
As a Syscoin asset, TYM will also have the ability to be arbitrarily transmuted between the SYS and ETH chains. Thus it will be able to use all the features of both blockchains. This functionality will be given by the upcoming Syscoin Bridge technology. We will write more about Syscoin and the capabilities its technology is granting us, in future articles. In the meanwhile we invite you to check out Syscoin’s main website (syscoin.org) and their publish0x blog: https://www.publish0x.com/@syscoin
