Travel settlement platform built on blockchain technology
Book - Rec - Pay - Done
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. Or had to reconcile a statement with bookings made six months ago that donít match up? It is time to find a better way....
Travel Ledger is an industry owned and run billing and settlement platform for the travel industry that promises to highly automate the travel purchasing process along the entire distribution chain. Travel Ledger will replace the current billing, reconciliation and settlement process to make it fast, easy and inexpensive to transact non-airline provided travel services.
For those familiar with the travel industry, think of Travel Ledger as comparable to 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 similar travel company 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, decentralised and authenticated ledger, establishing a "single source of truth"" for all parties. Furthermore, it will support settling or recording of payments in a secure and transparent manner; without the need for funds to be managed or held by a third party.
Travel Ledger will be a token governed, distributed platform exclusively for travel professionals, developed on the Ethereum blockchain smart contract technology. The Travel Ledger platform will use smart contracts to transparently record transactions and manage the flow of information between existing reservation and back office systems.
An easy to integrate API will be made available to all travel technology companies to use and integrate with, thus enabling automated reconciliation and settlement in a secure and transparent manner; without the need for existing business processes to change.
Using a single API, a shared ledger could enable a host of business processes to be fully integrated with back office and reservation systems:
When the end-to-end administration process is simplified and fully automated, everyone in the chain can focus time and effort on selling and serving customers.
Travel Ledger will be community owned; 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 ìprivateî 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 ìindustry initiativeî 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.
Proof of concept completed to validate project feasibility. Assembling founding team of key industry players to establish the Travel Ledger Alliance.
Creation of a Travel Ledger billing record for each booking, to facilitate electronic billing and automated reconciliation. API for back office systems to capture supplier invoices automatically.
Automation of remittance advice for "off chain"" payments. Intermediariesí back office systems will flag transactions as paid and provide suppliers with the evidence to do their own payment reconciliation.
Directly connecting Travel Ledger to payment platforms allowing end-to-end process to be fully automated, managing credit control and seamlessly making payments on the Travel Ledger platform (on chain) using a single API.
With widespread use, Travel Ledger could be leveraged to perform many other tasks. The open nature of the platform will allow any company to innovate and build their own applications on the Travel Ledger platform.
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 ìnon-airlineî products.
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 ensure the project becomes reality.
Alongside this, we are developing the platform, spreading the word within the industry and planning the activity for the rest of 2018 .. 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 Founders team 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
If you work for a travel company or travel technology company and are interested in being actively involved in the project or joining the Travel Ledger Alliance, please get in touch by emailing info@travelledger.org and we will be happy to talk to you in more detail and share our whitepaper.
