Tiny Start-up Seeks to Reinvent Travel Distribution

It's no secret that travel distribution is going through something of an evolution.

With new technologies emerging and impacting the way business has been conducted for decades, longtime industry leaders are searching for ways to be more innovative and collaborative in order to remain relevant.

The widespread use of the internet; the advent and proliferation of mobile; and new business strategies such as airlines selling ancillary services have all caused major disruption in the industry, as has the arrival of meta search platforms and gatekeepers like Facebook, Apple, and Google.

Amid all of this industrywide change, a new company is seeking to disrupt the legacy travel distribution business even more by completely decentralizing the distribution process. (And if all goes well, make travel cheaper for consumers and more profitable for suppliers.)

The company hoping to do all of this is Winding Tree.

Based in Switzerland and launched in January, Winding Tree is a non-profit with a mission of creating a blockchain-based, decentralized, open-source travel distribution platform.

Think of it as creating an internet designed exclusively for the travel industry.

While that may be a lot to digest, here's what it boils down to: Currently, the online travel industry is dominated by about five companies, two of which control about 95% of the market-Expedia and Priceline-says Winding Tree co-founder Maksim Izmaylov.

This dominance over the market causes travel prices to continuously rise, in large part because of fees imposed by such sites. At the same time, that centralized dominance creates significant barriers to entry for small travel companies, said Izmaylov.

"We are trying to create a marketplace or network for travel suppliers and sellers of travel without an intermediary," Izmaylov explained during a recent call from his Switzerland office. "The situation now is you have to work with one of those intermediaries in order to be seen."

For start-ups, convincing an intermediary to grant entry to the marketplace is no small task, said Izmaylov.

"You have to have a few hundred thousand dollars in funding to convince an intermediary that you're not going out of business," he explains. "Usually it is bigger companies, not startups, that are able to do this."

Add to all of this the fact that the technology used by many intermediaries is woefully outdated, and you have an opportunity ripe for an innovator. Enter Winding Tree, which was founded to address these and other industry challenges.

"In the travel industry, why can't we build something like Instagram or Snapchat," continues Izmaylov. "In this industry, you have to ask for permission all the time if you want to innovate."

Winding Tree is seeking to create a platform where the inventory is free for the taking.

Any seller who wants to can access the information and inventory on the single platform Winding Tree envisions. There will be no markup fees or barriers to entry. Meanwhile, on the supplier side of the equation, hotels and airlines would no longer be faced with the fees charged by intermediaries.

They can distribute inventory directly to points of sale.

[READMORE]READ MORE: The Future of Travel Distribution[/READMORE]

"We are building a network that no one physically owns, where there is no intermediary," he added. "It is kind of like an internet for the travel industry. You can connect to it if you are tech savvy and have a computer."

Reaching that goal remains a long way off: Winding Tree is still in the development phase.

The company will need to educate travel sellers around the world about their proposed platform, including raising awareness about what block chain is, how it works and why it is valuable. After that, travel sellers will need to begin using the platform.

"We want to enable people out there to start travel agencies and compete with Expedia, which is impossible today. That is how we will have better prices," Izmaylov said.

The Winding Tree Foundation will be conducting a token generation event starting November 1 and lasting two weeks in order to raise funds to support the continued development of its vision.

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