Assessment of blockchain applications in travel and tourism industry

Blockchain technology (BCT) is a network-based system, which is developed to create secure, smart and transparent distributed ledgers. Recently, BCT has been gaining more importance among different industries including travel and tourism industry through new tools such as smart contracts, decentralized applications and crypto currencies. However, despite the growing importance of the subject, only a few researchers have done studies with respect to blockchain applications in tourism and travel industry. Therefore, this study aims to propose a blockchain basics criteria set that allows decision makers to compare various distributed applications (DAPPs). The proposed blockchain basics criteria in this research are as follows: blokchain governance model, blockchain platforms, type of consensus, use of crypto currency, smart contract and tokens. Then, based on the proposed criteria set, case analysis is employed by using secondary data obtained from four successful DAPPs. However, note that this study does not seek to justify the selected DAPPs. Finally, major issues regarding the BCT and the importance of the proposed criteria set are also discussed. The findings may help lay the groundwork for future empirical studies.