The TUI Group, the world’s largest tourism company, is a firm believer in blockchain technology and is already moving some of its hotel technology to its own, in-house blockchain.
Based in Germany, the TUI Group is a multinational travel and tourism giant, the largest of its kind in the world. The group, which has some 67,000 employes, owns over 1,600 travel agencies, over 30 hotels, cruise ships and multiple airlines with a fleet of 150 planes. With a reported revenue of nearly $20 billion in 2016, the travel giant is led by chief executive Friz Joussen who is a keen, enthusiastic proponent of blockchain technology.
Joussen revealed details of BedSwap, an in-house private blockchain-powered project that sees TUI place its owned hotel inventory on a blockchain to assess demand and shift inventories between different points of sale in real-time. As reported by tech publication Tnooz, the next phase of the BedSwap could potentially see the firm’s entire property management system, down to individual hotel rooms, integrated onto the blockchain.
In conversation with Skift, Joussen revealed that TUI had invested less than €1 million ($1.29 million) on blockchain development. That’s a small spend, particularly when the group sees potential cost savings around €100 million ($129 million) per year.
Speaking to the publication in a recent interview, Joussen said of the group’s blockchain endeavor:
It’s a smart contract blockchain. So, we have all our contracts on the block chain, and we use it for hotel swapping. We have embedded it, we have coupled it to our yield systems, so the yield system determines where we want to sell the beds.
SatoshiPay is a a blockchain-based nanopayments company that processes nanopayment transactions. SatoshiPay’s technology is a two-way platform that enables content providers to charge consumers small amounts of money to gain access to the provider’s media.
Blue Star Capital PLC (LON:BLU), the investing company with a focus on technology and its applications within media and gaming, confirmed on 31st July 2017 that it had completed its investment in SatoshiPay.
