In traditional industries, there are often blockchain technology practitioners trying to join the already crowded centralized track. Do they have a chance of winning?
Recently, 36Kr reporter interviewed Shen Wei, the co-founder and CEO of Tripio. As the senior vice president of the wireless business of the original elong travel network and an Internet serial entrepreneur, Shen Wei told reporters his understanding of the implementation of blockchain technology.
According to the Tripio white paper, the blockchain-based decentralized travel service booking platform has obtained OKBlockchain Capital, BlockVC, INBlockchain, NodeCapital, Genesis Capital, FreeS Fund, Ceyuan Ventures, F2Pool, TRON and many other funds and industrial capital , a total of about 110 million yuan in financing . Its technical foundation is the public distributed ledger of Ethereum, based on the Tripio smart contract, using TRIO Token for accommodation booking, service providers do not need to pay any commissions, reducing operating costs; users will use lower prices to obtain better services.
Under the circumstance of "Ctrip before, Tujia and Xiaozhu after, and the track is very crowded", Shen Wei hopes to use blockchain technology to break the existing pattern of OTA (Online Travel Agency, "Online Travel Agency"). It has a place in it.
Traditional OTA commission costs are too high
As a 2C business using blockchain technology, what experience upgrades can Tripio bring to users? Shen Wei's response was: "They will feel cheap."
In Shen Wei's eyes, Tripio's opportunity stems from centralized traditional OTA companies, high commissions and difficult operating expenses. By ditching that fee with blockchain technology, Tripio will be a game-changer.
When Shen Wei served as the senior vice president of eLong's mobile phone reservation business, he witnessed the fierce competition between eLong and Ctrip in the mobile Internet business. At the end of 2014, Shen Wei left eLong. After analyzing the pattern, he found that the OTA track was very crowded at that time, and at the same time, he had been thinking about whether there was a new and more advanced business model.
In Shen Wei's eyes, the traditional OTA industry is currently facing two cost problems: First, the transaction cost of the entire industry is too high, and the middlemen charge at least 10~15% of the commission. Besides the hotel, the middlemen charge a larger part. Second, OTA service costs are high, and the important value of OTA is order confirmation, review and settlement, which is a very heavy cost in the transaction process. At present, in the entire OTA system, about 40~50% of the employees are people in the call and operation centers, and the human service cost is very heavy.
Shen Wei said that if the blockchain technology is used, the confirmation, review and settlement of the entire transaction will be well executed automatically. As a platform party, it only needs to pay a small cost to handle abnormal orders. When a new technology and architecture can replace it and form a trend, the cost of transaction will be lower and lower. When the blockchain travel service booking platform team is well established, it will be very streamlined, unlike the traditional OTA operation team with thousands of people, and it will only be operated by hundreds of people when it matures. Using blockchain technology, the problems of fake reviews and fake reviews will also be solved.
Shen Wei believes that travel is a very large industry, which will produce a relatively good network effect and can generate relatively large value. It is very possible to implement blockchain technology in the travel industry.
Blockchain technology is only suitable for startups at this stage
Blockchain technology operation can reduce costs and solve problems in travel, so what if Tripio is doing what OTA giants such as Ctrip do? Shen Wei's point of view is: No. He believes that giants will not and are not suitable to implement blockchain technology in OTA.
Shen Wei said that at this stage, the implementation of blockchain technology is only suitable for the development of startups. If OTA giants develop blockchain technology, they will face infrastructure problems as well as business problems.