The travel industry is in need for disruption.
Searching for the best offers is often a long process, which also contains a lot of fees from middlemen.
Now, a blockchain startup from Switzerland plans to decentralize the market with their Ethereum-based marketplace.
They have even announced a cooperation with German airline giant Lufthansa.
Winding Tree - "Decentralized Travel Distribution"
What is Winding Tree?
Winding Tree is a blockchain-based distribution platform for the travel industry.
They aim to create a marketplace for the travel industry where airlines, hotels and other businesses can sell their services directly, without middlemen that make the whole process more complicated and expensive.
Winding Tree aims to offer a B2B platform that prevents double marginalization and inflating the prices, making travel more affordable for consumers and more profitable for merchants.
The decentralized marketplace will provide anyone with access to inventory directly from the suppliers.
The platform will be running on the Ethereum blockchain, through the ERC20 token "Líf".
Winding Tree makes travel cheaper for individual travelers and more profitable for providers.
Winding Tree is a blockchain-based decentralized open-source travel distribution platform. We make travel cheaper for the end user, while making it more profitable for suppliers.
No centralized control means no exorbitant transaction fees and no barriers for entry. Moreover, we allow small companies to compete with big players, finally bringing innovation back into the travel industry.
Cooperation with Lufthansa & major airlines
Yesterday, news emerged that the Lufthansa Group is cooperating with Winding Tree, and will actually invest in their ICO as well.
CEO of Winding Tree Maksim Izmaylov stated that they will support with Lufthansa to build and test decentralized, blockchain-based travel apps, while Lufthansa on the other hand will integrate its APIs with the Winding Tree platform.
Specifically, Lufthansa is interested in having services like booking, rebooking and traveler itinerary information run on a blockchain.
Both Winding Tree and Lufthansa are considering the cooperation as a win-win.
Lufthansa will be able to explore new technological possibilities with experts from the crypto startup, while Winding Tree will get in contact with experts in the travel industry.
Simply put, in the future, airlines, hotels and other travel service providers will offer their services on Winding Tree’s platform, and companies interested in content will only connect to the B2B blockchain-distributed digital marketplace to present specific offers tailored to their customers’ needs. This will result in a large number of new apps for travelers, who will then be able to book Lufthansa Group flights via the offer that best suits their preferences.
Líf token
The Líf token is the heart of the winding tree platform. It's an ERC20 token that runs on top of the Ethereum Blockchain.
But it will have 3 additional methods compared to basic ERC20 tokens, through which token holders are able to send value, data,
and/or execute a function on those transfers.
This way, additional value and use cases will be brought to the token, enabling companies to create more complex and tailored applications on the Winding Tree platform.
Apart from the technological advantages of Líf, of course there are also the regular benefits of cryptocurrencies as such.
This includes discounted transaction costs and cheap international payments, which is especially important for the travel industry.
The Líf token facilitates transactions on the Winding Tree platform.
Líf is used for payments. In order for an agency (offline or online) to book anything on the Winding Tree platform, they will have to send a certain amount of Líf to the seller.
Winding Tree ICO
The Pre-Sale for the Winding ICO crowdsale is currently live.
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How can you participate?
Users can take part in the crowdsale with Ether tokens.
You will need a desktop wallet like Parity, Mist or other wallet providers, and then send the specific amount of ETH to an allocated address.
After the end of the fundraiser, Líf tokens will be distributed within 7 days.
Of course, Líf tokens will also be available for purchase / trading regularly on exchange platforms soon after the crowdsale event
Do you think Blockchain technology will soon disrupt the travel industry? Would you use a travel marketplace like winding tree?
© Sirwinchester