3 Reasons Why Tourism Will Blow Up This Season And The Next With The Help Of Crypto
It has been more than one year since COVID-19 related restrictions have changed the way we live and we think of our lives. It hasn't been easy all this time. It will probably not be that easy for the following years to get back to the old ways of living. But, finally we see light in the end of the tunnel and we have some indications that soon we will get back to do and enjoy some of the things that make us distinctively human, one of them being traveling and exploring.
Why travel industry will pick up now
First, vaccination is going well for a number of countries. Israel was the first to have a successful and fast vaccination campaign and now they have reopened their economy and eased if not removed altogether the anti-COVID measures. Vaccination is continuing with a speedy pace in the US with many states reopening and the UK in Europe expects to have had most of its population vaccinated and all restrictions lifted by June.
Seeing the financial blow they had in the past year, air-travel companies, tourist agencies and booking platforms are all rushing to launch enticing deals and offers to lure as many tourists to start traveling again. Heck, Greece a popular holiday destination is planning to vaccinate the population of entire islands and turn them into COVID-free zones for tourists.
How does the blockchain and crypto-currencies fit into the picture?
First, all these people who stayed at home got stimulus checks one after the other, with lots of that money being invested in crypto. Payment services such as VISA, Mastercard and Paypal are introducing payments in crypto for vendors and services. At the same time Reddit and people like Elon Musk have been introducing a large part of the global population to learn and invest in it seeing the returns it generates (hundred if not thousands of times more that bank interests). People are being educated everyday about the blockchain and the ease of payments and transactions through crypto.
Second, blockchain-based booking platforms are taking their share of the pie making booking vacations and paying with crypto seamlessly easy and preferable. I still can't believe it how I missed the opportunity to invest in it while it was trading at around 1 USD while now TRAVALA token is worth more than 5 USD. Imagine what will happen with its price when restrictions will start lifting globally and tourism picks up again. Something I found really interesting in their platform is that you can buy travel credits in form of crypto and use it whenever you want to travel. One of their latest developments was signing a partnership with Expedia Group one of the two travel and booking giants.
If you sign up with Travala through this link you get 10 USD in travel credits and another 25 USD (click the link here) in additional credits after you have made 200 USD worth of bookings.
The other travel platform giant Booking.com has partnered with Crypto.com with Crypto.com users enjoying a massive 25% discount in travel and accommodation.
Finally, the ability to use crypto payments will give more opportunities to individuals from developing economies that do not have credit or debit cards in Euro or USD and the fees to using their local currency cards are too high to be able to use crypto to afford paying for their vacations by minimizing or removing existing fees and barriers.
These are some of the reasons and updates that make me hopeful that the synergy between payment services, booking platforms, and crypto platforms and blockchain technology will bring unparalleled innovation and growth in the tourism industry post COVID-19. The hospitality industry should be ready for major disruption by blockchain technology.
