A Blockchain-Based Tourism Industry: How Promising Can It Be?

Introduction

The advent of the Internet has accelerated the pace of change in tourism industry, as it has empowered customers to browse and reserve their travel products through online channels (Önder & Treiblmaier, 2018). Tourism and travel sectors are witnessing radical changes nowadays and are set to undergo an even more substantial transformation in the coming years, driven by the preferences and requirements of tourism consumers, with digitalization playing a pivotal role (Puri et al., 2023; Erceg et al., 2020; Ozdemir et al., 2020). Traditionally, technology has been at the core of business operations, with automating processes to reduce costs (Menon & Mady, 2021). From the demand side, new trends have been established, reshaping the entire tourism industry (Calvaresi et al., 2019), with modern tourists being actively engaged in crafting their travel experiences, assuming the role of brand ambassadors as they share their first-hand encounters and consequently enhance the appeal of a destination. In other words, “they become protagonists of a process of co-creation of value that can affect both the destination in general and individual companies operating in the sector” (Caddeo & Pinna, 2021, p. 1). It is exactly for that reason, according to Susanto et al. (2020), that tourism service providers actively develop smart tourism: the enhancement of the tourist experience.

As Büttgen et al. (2021) and Cobanoglu et al. (2021) explain, both academics and practitioners are deeply interested in novel technologies and the impacts of innovations on industry players and consumers, with blockchain technology being one of the most discussed disruptive and revolutionary innovations. Since 2016 and 2018 the World Economic Forum and Gartner have included blockchain in top 10 emerging technologies (Calvaresi et al., 2019). The potential of this technology to disrupt economic sectors and lead digital transformation with the ultimate goal of satisfying consumers’ needs, along with other disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, 5G and IoT, is widely recognized by numerous researchers (Fragnière et al., 2022; Hashimy et al., 2022; Filimonau & Naumova, 2020; Ertemel, 2018). Industries such as tourism, banking, marketing, and advertising are expected to gain significant benefits through the implementation of blockchain technology (Baudier et al., 2022; Yan et al., 2021; Kwok & Koh, 2019; Harvey et al., 2018). Blockchain technologies demonstrate a disruptive impact on value chain and value co-creation (Novianti et al., 2022; Cobanoglu et al., 2021), a fact that have already attracted the interest of investors, as from a marketing perspective, investments on such disruptive technologies “are dependent on the added value derived from them” (Menon & Mady, 2021, p. 2). For the tourism industry in particular, innovations stemmed from the usage of blockchain technology for accommodation facilities or communication with customers can grant significant advantages over competitors (Demirel et al., 2021). In overall, blockchain is considered a disruptive technology that offers novel and unique value propositions to the market. Irrelevantly to its current adoption extent or whether it appears crucial to customers currently, there exists a correlation between technical advancement and shifts in customer demands (Aghaei et al. 2021). Disruptive technologies, though seemingly inferior to existing products, introduce fresh values for customers, such as affordability, convenience, size variations, and more.