Abstract
Blockchain technology has the potential to substantially transform the tourism industry. Its salient features such as immutability, transparency, programmability, and decentralization allow for innovative ways to design customer relationships, enable novel organizational structures and processes, and facilitate new forms of interorganizational collaboration. In this chapter, I first elaborate on the basic functioning of the blockchain and highlight those characteristics which are crucial for understanding the rest of the chapter. I not only equip scholars and practitioners with the knowledge needed to better comprehend blockchain technology and how to apply it in the context of the tourism industry but also highlight shortcomings and important research topics. Furthermore, I investigate the disruptive potential of the blockchain on an economic level by discussing various ways in which it can alter existing market structures und potentially lead to the disintermediation of incumbents in the tourism industry and the emergence of new players. Economic theory is referenced to better understand how blockchain characteristics might shape the future of the tourism industry and who the main beneficiaries will be. I end the chapter with several suggestions for future research and expected future developments.
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Notes
- 1.
Most people believe that Bitcoin was the first blockchain. This is true if the definition of blockchain encompasses decentralization and the consensus of a number of online nodes that do not trust each other. If the term is taken literally (i.e., as a chain of blocks containing data), the first blockchain was launched by the two cryptographers Stuart Haber and Scott Stornetta. Starting in 1995, they used a cryptographic hash value to produce a unique ID and to connect data blocks. This hash has been published in the New York Times on a weekly basis ever since to ensure that this chain of records cannot be tampered with.
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Treiblmaier, H. (2020). Blockchain and Tourism. In: Xiang, Z., Fuchs, M., Gretzel, U., Höpken, W. (eds) Handbook of e-Tourism. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05324-6_28-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05324-6_28-2
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Blockchain and Tourism- Published:
- 01 September 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05324-6_28-2
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Blockchain and Tourism- Published:
- 29 January 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05324-6_28-1