Blockchain in the Tourism Industry—A Review of the Situation in Croatia and Macedonia

Abstract

As one of the most interactive economic activities, tourism has improved significantly since the Internet allowed customers (travelers) to look for and create their trips without the need to go to a travel agency. Through the development of Internet marketing, tourists are able to receive information in real-time and view them on the screens of their devices (computers, laptops, mobile phones or tablets), and consequently they can create their own content and share it with others. Due to this development, we are witnessing a new phenomenon, so-called app capitalism, in which companies like Uber and Airbnb make money on services and goods they do not own and finding new business models in the tourism sector which enable customer-to-customer models. To be able to respond to these changes, the tourism industry needs to bring together knowledge, money, and technology for the purpose of creating new business models. The development of technology in all social spheres, including tourism, has provided a strong tool for consumers in terms of both acquiring and disclosing information to others. One of the rapidly growing technologies which is also one of the cutting-edge technologies entering tourism is blockchain. Blockchain technology captured worldwide attention in 2017 and its implementation has been revolutionizing various industries (e.g., retail, healthcare, tourism). The aim of this paper is to analyze the potential of the tourism industry in terms of blockchain implementation. Blockchain technology provides significant benefits to the tourism industry since its implementation can help increase competitive advantage, improve customer satisfaction and enhance performance. In this paper, the authors present the current situation in the Republic of Croatia and the Republic of Macedonia regarding the use of blockchain technology in the tourism industry. The main findings of this paper comprise the detection of key areas regarding why blockchain technology is not implemented in the tourist industry, and what processes should be handled. By presenting a case study of the implementation of blockchain technology in tourism, the authors analyze the potential of using blockchain technology in the tourism industry and discuss topics for further research.

Blockchain in Service Management and Service Research - Developing a Research Agenda and Managerial Implications

“…Our literature review reveals that a number of articles have addressed the impact of blockchain on business models, in general (e.g., Babich & Hilary 2018; Morkunas et al 2019) as well as on specific types of business models (e.g., Trabucchi et al 2020), and on different kinds of service industries (e.g., Erceg et al 2020;Kizildag et al 2019;Osmani et al (2020).…”

A Framework for the Promotion of Tourism Industry Using Blockchain Technology

“…This can cause problems as there is a possibility of scams or fake reviews. Blockchain can be used to fix by its features like privacy, trust, transparency and security [11]. The tourism sector was the leading investor in blockchain in 2018 [12], by which time the trend is expected to continue in three years.…”

Turizm İşletmelerinde Bilgi ve İletişim Teknolojilerinden (ICT) Blokzincir Teknolojisine Geçiş Süreci ve Uygulama Örnekleri

“…Blokzinciri teknolojisi konaklama işletmelerinde gelir yönetimi, envanter kontrolü, misafir geçmişi ve finansal yönetim gibi alanlarda kullanıma uygundur (Rejeb ve Karim 2019;Erceg, Damoska Sekuloska ve Kelić, 2020). Turizm bu uygulamaların hepsini çok karışık sistemler ile kullanmakta olup, blokzinciri teknolojisi ile hem karmaşıklık hem de güven sorunu çözülecektir (Varelas, Georgitseas, Nechita ve Sahinidis, 2019).…”

“…Blokzinciri ekonomi (Jantoń-Drozdowska ve Mikołajewicz-Woźniak, 2017); sigorta (Gatteschi, Lamberti, Demartini, Pranteda ve Santamaría, 2018); açık artırma (Brandenburger vd., 2018) ve nesnelerin interneti (Kösesoy, 2019) gibi birçok alanda başarılı bir şekilde kullandığını gösteren uygulamalar ve çalışmalar yapılmıştır. Blokzincirinin ürettiği çözümler arasında envanter yönetimi, sadakat yönetimi, rezervasyon, biletleme, dijital ödemeler, yüz ve kimlik tespit yönetimi yer almaktadır (Erceg, Damoska Sekuloska ve Kelić, 2020).…”