Hobo Hotel Stockholm, a member of the Nordic Choice Hotels
group, used Winding Tree to complete what the travel distribution platform claims
is the first hotel booking on a public blockchain platform. Winding Tree said
it's now ready for "real-world usage of public blockchains." Payments
can be in the form of fiat currency, credit card or cryptocurrency in the form
of ether or Winding Tree's Lif tokens.
Public blockchains are not controlled by any one company,
making them more secure than private blockchains, as there isn't a central
point of failure, said Winding Tree co-founder and CEO Pedro Anderson.
"Because Winding Tree is built on public blockchain, airline, travel
companies and blockchain developers can work together without having to trust a
central company with their inventory. Instead they control their relationships
and own their data."
Public blockchains, however, are slower and more expensive
than traditional databases. Anderson said the company overcame those
limitations by carrying out the more complex, transaction-heavy functions on an
open-source application programming interface level. "This allows us to
maintain the advantages of decentralization but to make the platform scalable
and cost-efficient," he said.
"We're not just giving customers the option to pay with
bitcoin and saying, 'This is distribution on the blockchain,'" Anderson
added. "We're providing a platform that allows the travel industry to
create real change within an industry traditionally closed that relies on
systems established nearly 30 years ago. The core of the platform is open
source and distributed, which creates endless possibilities for real customer
use, including lower costs, security, connectivity and unlimited innovation
opportunities."
Winding Tree has partnered with, in addition to Nordic
Choice Hotels, CitizenM hotels, Switzerland's Airport Hotel Basel, Air
Canada, Air France-KLM, Lufthansa
Group and Air New Zealand.