About Travel Ledger
For too long travel companies have put up with sifting through hundreds of statement and invoices from suppliers – all in varying formats and wanting to be paid in different ways, meaning bank wire and foreign exchange charges. Or had to reconcile a statement with bookings made weeks ago that don’t match up. It was time to find a better way.
Travel Ledger is a billing and settlement platform run and governed by the travel industry that will highly automate the travel purchasing process along the entire distribution chain while reducing the cost to process payments for all parties. Travel Ledger will replace the current cumbersome billing, reconciliation and settlement processes and make it fast, easy and inexpensive to transact non-airline provided travel services.
What will Travel Ledger do?
For those familiar with the travel industry, think of Travel Ledger as IATA’s BSP but for non-air travel services. Providing a platform where travel agents, tour operators, accommodation wholesalers, hotel companies, car rental suppliers, cruise companies and any other travel business can access a single, shared central data repository and use it to track transactions with all their connected intermediaries and suppliers using the same unified protocol, in near real-time.
The Travel Ledger platform will allow all billing records between buyers and sellers of travel products to be stored in a shared, decentralized and authenticated ledger, establishing a “single source of truth” for all parties. Furthermore, it will support settling and recording of payments in a secure and transparent manner; without the need for funds to be managed or held by a third party.
How does Travel Ledger work?
Travel Ledger is a distributed platform, created exclusively for travel professionals, and is developed on the Ethereum blockchain smart contract technology. The Travel Ledger platform uses smart contracts to transparently record transactions and manage the flow of information between existing reservation and back-office systems, as well as move funds amongst the parties when its Travel Ledger pay facility is used.
While an intuitive user portal is available for less automated businesses, an easy to integrate API/SDK is available for larger companies and can be integrated with any travel technology, thus enabling automated reconciliation and payments in a secure and transparent manner; without affecting or changing any existing booking processes.
How could Travel Ledger be used?
A shared ledger used by all companies in the travel industry allowing them to share data and cost-efficiently and to pay each other could enable a host of business processes to be fully integrated with back office and reservation systems, requirements, and participate in the governance by submitting proposals and voting. A collaborative and decentralized approach will ensure that Travel Ledger can be run as a industry Consortium, pursuing the interest of the wider travel industry, for example by offering lower usage fees as transaction volumes increase.
Who will power Travel Ledger?
Travel Ledger will be a Consortium; owned and run by the travel industry, for the travel industry.
The Travel Ledger Alliance will be the governing body, composed of an advisory board of industry players, that sets the standards and controls access. Travel Ledger will be “private” in the sense that only accredited travel companies will be given access. A collaborative and decentralised approach will ensure that Travel Ledger is truly an “industry initiative” rather than being controlled by one side of the distribution chain, or private capital pursuing its own goals instead of the interest of the wider travel industry.

Roadmap


What’s next?
The Travel Ledger team is in talks with some of the main industry players to finalise the Founders; a group of visionary industry players that will form the initial Consortium and ensure the project becomes reality.
Alongside this, we are developing the platform, spreading the word within the industry and planning the activity for the nest 12 months .. but we are still a small team. If you want to find out more, get involved or your company wants to become part of the Consortium and help shape this industry changing initiative, get in touch via the form below. Over the next few weeks we will disclose the companies that are part of the project and introduce you to the team working to make Travel Ledger the settlement platform for the travel industry
Adoption
Adoption is key. In addition to talking to the main companies in the travel industry (technology companies and suppliers), the Travel Ledger team has devised a business model that incentivises all parties to promote adoption and support for this ambitious project.
By leveraging the revolutionary technology of blockchain and smart contract platforms, Travel Ledger has the ability to become the industry standard for the settlement of all type of travel products.
