Articles tagged “bitcoin”

Destinations, start spending your marketing dollars on the ultimate repeat visitor — the remote worker.

Data breaches often go undetected for months or even years, so is this latest attack a new tactic the travel industry needs to prepare against?

Booking Holdings wants to be an innovator and supporter of alternative payments systems given its presence in emerging markets, especially in Asia. So it is understandable that Booking would want to be a first mover in Facebook's digital currency effort, regardless of how it eventually turns out.

Some entrepreneurs and scammers are treating initial coin offerings like get-rich-quick schemes, and the travel distribution ecosystem isn't immune. Beware of people who say they can totally disrupt the travel industry, especially if they don't even understand how the industry works.

Emerging technologies, like artificial intelligence and blockchain, have yet to make the leap from buzzword to mainstay, but have the potential to disrupt travel incumbents. The big players will have ample opportunity to adapt, though, and leading startups can play a role in helping executives grapple with when and how to implement these technologies.

Venture capitalists invested a record amount in travel startups in 2017. The industry is no stranger to disruption, but we may be seeing some of the greatest changes of the last two decades. Our latest research report is a deep dive into these emerging trends with insights for founders, incumbents, and investors.

Blockchain is essentially a large immutable database which, due to its security features and decentralized nature, can pose a threat to traditional intermediaries. Companies are looking to expand blockchain to tackle the current travel distribution landscape.

Consumer adoption of new payment methods and devices for settling purchases is the main driver of adoption by companies. Yet travel companies can gain a valuable competitive advantage by predicting trends in payments and making payments as easy as possible for everyone.

We hope there is no way this could all go horribly, horribly wrong.

The use of Bitcoin, and second-tier currencies Litecoin and Dogecoin, on CheapAir is tiny and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Still, it is nice to try out the new currencies to see how it all goes.