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.

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Make Billing Easier

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Automate the purchasing process

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Reduce time and cost

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Work in hand with industry

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.

Commission payment to agents

The hotel PMS records the booking on Travel Ledger and the expected seller commission is calculated. The payment to the seller is processed and recorded on Travel Ledger. Agents receive all commission payments in a single transaction in one single account saving them bank and FX charges.

Supplier invoice reconciliation

The invoice or confirmation recorded in Travel Ledger at the time of booking has a single format, the back-office system automatically reads it and reconciles it.

Cost efficient B2B payment

At the time of booking, the reservation system can use the API to move funds in real time from a buyer account to a seller account at a fraction of the time and cost needed for other payment methods. When the end-to-end administration process is simplified and fully automated, everyone in the chain can focus their time and effort on selling and serving customers.

Payment reconciliation

The payment is processed and the transaction is recorded on the Travel Ledger platform. The receiving party can automatically check and reconcile the incoming payment against relevant invoice/transaction in detail.

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

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Achieved

Proof of concept completed to validate project feasibility. Assembling founding team of key industry players to establish the Travel Ledger Alliance

Phase 1 – Summer 2018

Creation of an alpha version of Travel Ledger, focusing on the data structure and business logic to drive the data exchange mechanism that facilitates electronic invoicing, remittance and automated reconciliation. First API for back-office systems to create and read transactions automatically.
Upcoming

Phase 2 – Q4 – 2018

Beta release and first pilot. Company onboarding process, integration of treasury/payment platform including payment automation and Forex. General development to make the platform “production ready”. Delivery of the first SDK.
2019 and future

Phase 3 – 2019

Go-live of the platform and start of users’ registration process. Creation of smart contracts to facilitate credit control and automated payments, including integration of 3rd party payment platforms, credit cards and cryptocurrency payments. Bounty program for travel technology suppliers that implement support for Travel Ledger.

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

Phase 4 - 2020

Introduction of the Master node reward program to expand the network beyond the infrastructure managed by the Travel Ledger Alliance and generate revenue for companies that help provide power to the platform. Release of the proposal submission and voting platform.

Future Vision

With widespread use, Travel Ledger could be leveraged to perform many other tasks. The open nature of the Ethereum platform will allow any participating company to innovate and build their own travel-related smart contracts and applications on the Travel Ledger platform.

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.

Recent News

Contact

We’re looking to hear from you if:
– you work for a travel company or in travel tech
– you are interested in being actively involved in the project or joining the Travel Ledger Alliance

Please email info@travelledger.org

We will open a Discord channel to answer all your questions after we publish the whitepaper.

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