The tourism industry in Italy has always been a key GDP sector.
The pandemic brought a drastic halt to activities and travel from abroad to the “Bel Paese”, forcing many small and medium-sized businesses to at least temporarily cease operations, or to substantially reduce staff.
In the summer of 2022, tourism-related infrastructure is fully resuming its functions, and in a landscape of growth and development, Blockchain could bring many benefits.
Blockchain and travelers
When organizing a trip, there is an exchange of personal information of the customer, data related to different means of transportation (flights, trains, ferries), distinctive elements of accommodations. Blockchain would make it possible to record all of this information within a distributed ledger, thus enabling the traceability of all transactions and preventing the loss of information and data due to deletions or hacker attacks.
Also thanks to Blockchain, hotels and transportation agencies could record customer data on large databases, promoting the security of the information obtained through the vigilant control exercised by the platform.
The above, in addition to secure sharing of personal data, also applies to financial transactions. In the tourism sector, protecting the security of agreements and simplifying exchanges between different players can be a great advantage both because it reduces commission costs and saves time during booking.
Through distributed ledgers, payments can be made using banking services, which immediately become more secure, or by exchanging cryptocurrencies.
In long lines due to passenger recognition and identification operations, the combined use of Blockchain and artificial intelligence could easily enable the introduction of fingerprint or rètina scanning, and greatly shorten the time and more securely locate information about the traveler. In addition, for customers who travel frequently, digitizing and turning loyalty points into tokens would make it easier for them to manage their rewards and benefits. And again, the ability to track and monitor the movement of one’s luggage is a guarantee to avoid the loss of personal belongings during travel, or the well-known inconveniences described by bewildered travelers who face the odyssey of retrieving misdirected or lost luggage altogether in distant countries.
La Blockchain and airline flights
To stick to pressing issues, airlines in recent times have suffered many staff strikes due to the failure to reinstate employees fired during the pandemic.
Blockchain can ensure that flight conditions are monitored and simplify refunds if travel is lost. In this way, customers can be assured that they will not lose their money.
But given that in most cases the real risk is missed departure, Blockchain could, through a data sharing and industry interchange agreement, redirect the traveler in real time to the most cost-effective and reliable flight at another airline.
Imagine the case of a sportsman or conductor engaged in a performance that would be prejudiced by their absence. For these and many similar professionals, it is the safety of departure that is the real goal. Suffice it to say that British theaters and concert institutions stipulate in their contracts with contracted artists that they must be on British soil the night before the events they will be performing. It is easy to see that blockchain can make a decisive contribution to the process toward safety and peace of mind for millions of the world’s citizens whose business is closely linked to the transportation sector.
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