Marriot Joining Airbnb in Home Share Market, Blockchain Still a Strong Competitor

Can blockchain solve all the travel problems we didn’t know we had?

Airbnb executives have graciously welcomed new competition from Marriott into their enormously popular travel market position. However, blockchain proponents have been identifying valuable use cases within travel for a few years now. Some companies are already using the blockchain to streamline the travel booking process for vendors and consumers. A few examples include Beenest, LockTrip, and Travala.  

Marriott and Airbnb

Ten years ago, the hotel industry was broadsided with the nearly overnight success of Airbnb. Providing fun, unique, and mutually beneficial lodging alternatives on an international level, Airbnb is now a $2.6 billion dollar company. In a classic “if you can’t beat them, join them” strategy, Marriott International has announced it is pushing back against the start-up that wanted to disrupt the hotel industry from day one by offering its own home sharing service. Marriott’s home-sharing service is expected to launch within weeks. After beta testing smaller pilot programs throughout Europe, Marriott appears ready to expand into this market on a large scale. With a large existing customer base, the hotel chain’s deep roots and strong platform are already indicators of success. One major advantage of the company is its firm and dedicated grasp on the corporate travel market. Vacationers can afford the luxury of risking money, time, and possibly clean toilet seats in a quest to find fun, comfort, and unique experiences offered by private lodging options through Airbnb, HomeAway, or VRBO. Business travelers are mostly stuck with the sterile, stale hotel rooms they have been utilizing since the beginning of business travel. Really, the best they can hope for is swanky shampoo. Marriott’s foray into the home sharing market is tapping a market ripe for lodging alternatives. Business travelers need reliability. They need simple and seamless receipts for their expense reports. However, like the rest of us, they desire comfort, personality, and adventure. Airbnb recently expanded into the business traveler market as well, perhaps spurring Marriott to action sooner than expected. Airbnb corporate travel offerings include not just lodging, but also relocation services and business meeting facilities. If Airbnb’s success in vacation travel is any indicator of this initiative’s future, it is no wonder that Marriott is already jumping on board.

Booking: the Worst Part of Travel

Still, a major problem remains. Consumers are still deeply dissatisfied by the booking process. This is understandable. Booking travel continues to be a chaotic, disjointed, and deeply stressful endeavor for most travelers, corporate and vacationers alike. Multiple booking platforms, volatile pricing structures, and inefficient processes are the norm, not the exception. Rather than actual savings and customer service, consumers are bombarded with pop-up ads and spam emails. Marriott’s centralized approach to management may become problematic as they enter into the home-sharing market. Though Airbnb is a centralized business entity, it does offer pseudo-decentralized processes for booking. However, a truly decentralized approach may be able to defeat both Marriott and Airbnb.

Blockchain to the rescue

Some of the problems facing travel service industries are pretty big and seemingly insurmountable. Perhaps this is why consumers are satisfied with booking services like Expedia, Priceline, and Kayak. Perhaps this is why Marriott, the same Marriott entering the home sharing sector, is still in business after a data breach exposing the personal information of 500 million customers to Chinese hackers was revealed last fall. The fact that the above description parallels that of blockchain technology is not lost on blockchain entrepreneurs and developers. Several notable blockchain projects, after identifying the need for a better system for customers and providers alike, entered the travel space during the ICO boom of 2017. Some of these platforms are emerging. Others are up and running, showing growth and nearing profitability. LockTrip, an international hotel and flight booking blockchain project, launched a live testnet in early March 2019. With access to over 100,000 hotels and an impressive 250 TPS minimum, the platform is poised to see tremendous success. Competitor Travala is focusing on accommodations only, with over 550,000 lodging options currently available for booking. The company saw 265 percent growth in January 2019, possibly due to the introduction of fiat payments. While the native AVA token is still a payment option, along with 10 other cryptocurrencies, enabling fiat payments eliminates a degree of fear from potential clients. Travala aims to offer 1.5 million accommodation choices by the end of 2019. Beenest and it’s BEE Token strategically and specifically entered the sharing community. Rather than competing with monoliths like Expedia and Travelocity, Beenest chose to target a currently scalable endeavor. Built on Ethereum smart contracts, Beenest differs from Airbnb in that it doesn’t charge standard 15 percent transaction fees. The Beenest ICO, which ended in February 2018, raised $15 million for the Bee Token. While blockchain still lacks the mass adoption capacity necessary to be a leading contender in the travel market, the writing is on the wall. Consumers and vendors demand a better way. The growth of blockchain business solutions means that even business travelers will have better options than accumulating hotel rewards in the very near future. Cryptocurrency pioneers are ready for the challenge.