How Smart Tourism Embrace Blockchains and Smart Contracts
Abstract
The purpose of the research is to investigate the implementation of blockchains (BCs) and smart contracts (SCs) in smart tourism. BCs and SCs in the context of tourism are underexplored. Data were collected and analysed from relevant secondary sources in extensive desktop research between January and August 2018. The results highlight some implemented examples of BCs and SCs in tourism and few that are still in probation phase. The findings are interesting for tourism policy-makers, professionals, academics and tourism suppliers who are interested in real value added of BCs and SCs in tourism.
References
Antcoins Analyser (2018). How blockchain is disrupting travel industry? Available at: https://medium.com/coinmonks/some-airlines-are-already-in-collaboration-with-blockchain-based-projects-but-which-is-their-2bf4e753180d [Accessed: 29. 8. 2018].
Bjoroy, T. V. (2018). Blockchain and travel industry pain points. 18. 4. 2017. Available at: https://www.coindesk.com/blockchain-end-travel-industry-pain-points/ [Accessed: 18. 4. 2018].
Blockgeeks (n.d.). Smart Contracts: The Blockchain Technology That Will Replace Lawyer. Available at: https://blockgeeks.com/guides/smart-contracts/ [Accessed: 17. 4. 2018].
Caasey, M. J. and Vigna, P. (2018). “Blockchain and the future of everything”. Global. Issue Sept 2018, pp. 44-47.
CFO Insight (2016). “Getting smart about smart contracts”. Delloite, June 2016. Available at: https://www2.deloitte.com/tr/en/pages/finance/articles/cfo-insights-getting-smart-contracts.html [Accessed: 12. 12. 2017].
Cristidis, K. and Devetsikiotis, M. (2016). “Blockchains and Smart Contracts for Internet of Things”. IEEE Access, 4, 2292-2303. DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2016.2566339.
Del Chiappa, G. and Baggio, R. (2015). »Knowledge transfer in smart tourism destinations: analyzing the effects of a network structure«. Journal of Destination Marketing & Management, 4(3), pp. 145-150.
Eenamma-Dimitrieva, H. and Schmidt-Kessen (2017). “Regulation through code as s safeguard for implementing smart contracts in no-trust environment”. Law 2017/13. Working paper. Available at: http://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/47545/LAW_2017_13.pdf?sequence=1 [Accessed 12. 12. 2017].
Ethereum. (2019). The Ultimate Smart Contract Toolkit: A suite of tools to help you develop, compile, upgrade, deploy and interact with smart contracts. Available at: https://www.ethereum.org/token [Accessed 12. 10. 2019].
Fes, N. (2108). “Blockchain in Tourism: Hope or Hype”. Tourism Review [online], 18.6.2018. Available at: https://www.tourism-review.com/blockchain-in-tourism-world-news10635 [Accessed: 29. 8. 2018].
Froyd, J. N. (2018) “Tourism industry my benefit from blockchain application”. Tourism Review. Available at: https://www.tourism-review.com/tourism-industry-discussing-the-blockchain-news10454 [Accessed: 29. 8. 2018].
Grant, A. (2018). Smart Contracts 101: How This Emerging Technology Works. Jan 215, 2018. Available at: https://www.tripwire.com/state-of-security/security-awareness/what-are-smart-contracts/[Accessed: 14. 4. 2018].
Gretzel, U., Koo, Ch., Sigala, M. and Xiang, Z. (2015a). »Special issue on smart tourism: convergence of information technologies, experiences, and theories«. Electron Markets 25, pp. 175–177. Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12525-015-0194-x [Accessed: 12. 2. 2018].
Gretzel, U., Sigala, M., Xiang, Z. and Koo, C. (2015b). »Smart tourism: foundations and developments«. Electron Markets 25, pp. 179–188. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280719315_Smart_tourism_foundations_and_developments [Accessed: 12. 2. 2018].
How Blockchain (2017). How Blockchain will disrupt the Travel and Tourism Industry. Available at: https://medium.com/dubtokens/how-blockchain-will-disrupt-the-travel-and-tourism-industry-b59961bde3e3 [Accessed 12. 4. 2018].
Kaminska, I. (2018a). “Trouth and fiction in blockchain’s brave new world”. Financial Times, Jan 2, 2018. Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/1858c8a0-efa7-11e7-ac08-07c3086a2625 [Accessed: 28. 8. 2018].
Kaminska, I. (2018b). “Why block chain is a belief system”. Financial Times, 11. 1. 2018. Available at: https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/01/11/2197546/why-blockchain-is-a-belief-system/ [Accessed: 28. 8. 2018].
Kassireddy, P. (2017). Fundamental challenges with the public blockchain. Available at: https://medium.com/@preethikasireddy/fundamental-challenges-with-public-blockchains-253c800e9428 [Accessed: 29. 8. 2018].
Koo, C., Seunghun S., S., Gretzel, U., Cannon Hunter, W. and Chung, N. (2016). »Conceptualization of Smart Tourism Destination Competitiveness«. Asia Pacific Journal of Information Systems, 26(4), 561-576.
Parsons, M. (2017). Aruba first country to use blockchain as tourism distribution platform. TTG Media [online], 4. 12. 2017. Available at: https://www.ttgmedia.com/news/technology/aruba-first-country-to-use-blockchain-as-tourism-distribution-platform-12531 [Accessed: 12. 4. 2018].
PollySwarm (2018). 5 Companies Already Brilliantly Using Smart Contracts. Medium PollySwarm [online] 7. 3. 2018. Available at: https://medium.com/swarmdotmarket/5-companies-already-brilliantly-using-smart-contracts-ac49f3d5c431 [Accessed: 29. 8. 2018].
Revfine (2018). How Can Blockchain Benefit the Travel Industry? Available at: https://www.revfine.com/blockchain-technology-travel-industry/ [Accessed: 29. 8. 2018].
Roberts, J.J. (2017). “5 Ways Business Are Already Using Blockchains”. Fortune, 22. 8. 2017. Available at: http://fortune.com/2017/08/22/blockchain-walmart-maersk-banking/ [Accessed: 22. 5. 2018].
Savelyev, A. (2017). »Contract law 2.0: Smart contract as the beginning of the end of classic contract law«. Information & Communication Technology Law, 26(2), pp. 116-134.
Skinner, C. (2018). Blockchain Adoption: Banking. Mar 9, 2018. Available at: https://bravenewcoin.com/news/whats-next-for-blockchain/ [Accessed: 28. 8. 2018].
Sorrells, M (2018). Can blockchain help a tiny, travel-dependent island reinvent its economy? 18. 4. 2018. Available at: https://www.phocuswire.com/Aruba-blockchain-Winding-Tree [Accessed: 29. 8. 2018].
Sproule, C. (2018). As smart contracts get smarter the rules of development will change. 18. 2. 2018. Available at: https://venturebeat.com/2018/02/18/as-smart-contracts-get-smarter-the-rules-of-development-will-change/ [Accessed: 12. 3. 2018].
Szabo, N. (1994). Smart Contracts. Available at: http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/rob/Courses/InformationInSpeech/CDROM/Literature/LOTwinterschool2006/szabo.best.vwh.net/smart.contracts.html [Accessed: 17. 4. 2018].
Szabo, N. (1996). Smart Contracts: Building Blocks for Digital Markets. Available at: http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/rob/Courses/InformationInSpeech/CDROM/Literature/LOTwinterschool2006/szabo.best.vwh.net/smart_contracts_2.html [Accessed: 17. 4. 2018].
Tourism (2017). Tourism – the next sector to Benefit Big from Blockchain Solution. Dec 7, 2017. Available at: https://medium.com/@otncoin/tourism-the-next-sector-to-benefit-big-from-blockchain-solutions-2f3ff633b0f3 [Accessed: 17. 4. 2018].
Tnooz (2016) The what, why and how of blockchain in travel. Dec 7, 2018. Available at: https://www.tnooz.com/article/applications-of-blockchain-travel/ [Accessed: 28. 8. 2018].
Ugovšek, J. and Grapučin, T. (2018). Evropska komisija o blockchainu: ponuja 340 milijonov subvencij (European Committee on Blockchain: it offers 3400 million EUR of subsidies). Finance [online], 1. 2. 2018. Available at: https://www.finance.si/8864124 [Accessed: 23. 8. 2018].
Varshney, N. (2018). Traveling the word on cryptocurrency alone is tricky, but possible. 1. 6. 2018. Available at: https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/06/01/travel-world-cryptocurrency/ [Accessed: 29. 8. 2018].
Wroten, B. (2017). “Blockchain holds promise, unknowns for hotel industry”. Hotelnewsnow, 8. 11. 2017. Available at: http://www.hotelnewsnow.com/Articles/251945/Blockchain-holds-promise-unknowns-for-hotel-industry [Accessed: 16. 3. 2018].
The authors retain rights under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International CC BY-SA 4.0. Authors assign copyright or license the publication rights in their articles, including abstracts, to MIP=JIBM. This enables us to ensure full copyright protection and to disseminate the article, and of course MIP=JIBM, to the widest possible readership in electronic format. Authors are themselves responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce copyright material from other sources.