Travala.com, a leading crypto-friendly travel platform, reported that it achieved “explosive growth” in the third quarter of 2021, with the use of cryptocurrencies playing a major role. Its blockchain-based platform allows customers to use more than 50 digital currencies to make payments.

Juan Otero statement As early as July, 70% of bookings were paid in digital currency, and weekly revenue exceeded $1 million.He also commented

As more and more people hold cryptocurrency and more and more companies accept it for real-world things, travel is naturally an ideal experience for using cryptocurrency.

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Travala works with Tripadvisor’s Viator and Expedia Group-although Expedia does not directly accept Bitcoin payments. Through these partnerships alone, they have provided more than 700,000 hotels and accommodations and 400,000 bookable activities that can be purchased with cryptocurrency.

Otero said earlier, “Travala.com offers more than 3 million travel products, making us not only the largest encryption-friendly [online travel agency], But overall it is one of the largest. “

In hotel bookings alone, 75% of them are paid in cryptocurrency, 13% are paid in travel points, and only 12% are paid in traditional currencies. Travala’s native AVA altcoin rose to the top with a usage rate of 14%, followed by Binance Payment (12%) and Bitcoin (8%). The utilization rate of other cryptocurrencies is 41%.

The CEO certainly met the expectations he had stated in the past and now expresses it in the statement Q3 report:

Although the past few years have been the most challenging years in the history of the tourism industry, Travala.com has grown exponentially as the increase in cryptocurrency adoption has offset the negative effects of the pandemic.

Travala’s report states that the Binance Mini-App integration, which allows customers to purchase services directly from their Binance exchange wallet, “has been rapidly evolving, driving more bookings than any personal token.”

Crypto travel: token voting and NFT memory

AVA is Travala’s decentralized token, which provides users with economic incentives and aims to build a community of guests and hosts who have the right to vote on the platform. 44,438 AVA tokens were issued, “used for standard booking rewards, smart loyalty and invitation program rewards”, equivalent to US$155,248.

Starting in August 2021, 30% of all Travala.com’s net income is now converted to AVA every month and added to the community pool. (…) The tokens will be used to expand the coverage of AVA tokens and create more diverse use cases, which we expect to benefit the Travala.com platform and AVA.

Travala began to use decentralized AVA token governance to implement community pools and community voting, providing users with a real opportunity to propose changes.

The community proposal put forward a concept they are currently studying, the “Proof of Travel” NFT, which was approved by 89.6% of the community votes. It includes allowing their users to apply for NFTs through blockchain-based travel records as part of a smart membership.

We can expect this release to take place in the fourth quarter because they stated that they “put a lot of resources into it as a priority.”

They also plan to establish more partnerships, integrate their mini-applications into other exchanges and Metaverse, and upgrade their wallet infrastructure to support tokens BEP2, BEP20, and ERC20.

The company invested in the third quarter to expand its development team by 23%, hiring engineers and customer support teams to improve its core platform and reservation infrastructure. Their goal is to further increase the size of the team to 50% in the fourth quarter.

Travala announced that they plan to continue to develop and expand the coverage of their platform, focusing on providing a better booking experience for “crypto travelers around the world”. As the travel industry has been greatly affected by the pandemic era, the company aims to achieve exponential growth by adapting crypto innovation to the industry.

So far, only through Travala’s report, many people can see how the adoption of encryption technology can bring growth, innovation, employment, and even the possibility of new ways to travel and experience the world. As the pandemic has changed many aspects of everyone’s life, it is great to see improvements brought about by blockchain technology.

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