TravelChain: We Create Smart Traveling Ecosystem

Interviews with the project team TravelChain:

Q: Do you have an existing revenue or any net gains to prove that your business model is profitable? Have you actually tested your business idea on the market or you just have a theory?

A: TravelChain is a non-profitable system which allows travel companies to create their new innovative business models using the blockchain benefits . We plan to get profit from mapala.net (P2P travel market & travel blogging platform), which is going to be the first application based on TravelChain and which is already integrated with Steemit and Golos since 03.01.2017 and has paid its users cryptocurrencies in amount equal to over 250 000$.

Our idea and architecture was born, while we were creating a blockchain solution for our project mapala.net. Later we met a lot of travel market representatives during the conferences and personal meetings and they gave us tons of feedback, that proved the necessity and actuality of our solution.

Network value will grow basing on the amount of data and the number of users (travelers passports), which we are going to get from integrated applications. Our Business plan is posted on https://travelchain.io/Business-plan.pdf

Q: There are several competitors on the data market. In fact this market is quite competitive and there are dozens of companies that have similar concept. They might not concentrate on traveling, and use blockchain but they have large existing customer base and working platforms. How are you going to attract new clients?

A: Users are motivated to share their data with our platform by several things. First of all, the more data they provide – the better the customer service becomes for each exact person. Second and the main motivation is created by TravelToken: people are getting profit for sharing their info.

To attract new users we will integrate existing travel businesses and applications. The marketing campaign will be targeted on the travel businesses and regular travelers to let them know about the project and involve them into the Ecosystem.

In addition, I have to say that we already have a partnership with large players of the travel market that want to be integrated into our platform and what’s even more important, want to integrate their users and clients either (izi.travel with 3 million users).

The fact, that we are concentrated on the travel industry allows us to stay focused and gather exactly the data the industry and market needs.

Q: Could you please explain more in details about Travel Token rewards. As far as I understand, basically user sells his information to a business, and in return he will be rewarded with tokens. Have you done an actual calculations for an average person (I am not talking about extreme cases) – how much he can expect to earn?

A: The cost of the user data will be set and managed by the market, so the user profit will vary depending on the data he shared, on the actuality of that data and even on the seasonal demand. Nevertheless, users will be provided with a digital asset, price of which will grow over time, so it is also a way of getting profit for them.

Q: Let’s assume that Travel Token price will increase due to speculative nature of the market. Users receive rewards in tokens, which means that “cost” of information will rise for business too. Wouldn’t that completely ruin your B2B concept?

A: B2B concept will keep working, because of the flexible prices regulation by the market and community. Even considering that the token price will grow, the value of data will be kept on quite the same level according only on seasonal needs of the market and its supply and demand.

Q: Your team is entirely based in Russia. That increases economical and political related risks. Russia became a source of controversial news: Today we can hear about governmental adoption of cryptocurrency, tomorrow we might hear that Russia wants to ban cryptocurrency. That is not very investment-stable environment. Are you planning somehow to minimize those risks?

A: The company itself is registered in Singapore to avoid any legal-based risks. We are planing to register an additional operational company in Switzerland after the token sale. In 2018 we also plan to open offices in Singapore and Switzerland, but the headquarter is going to stay in Ekaterinburg, because our project was born there. A lot of young and very talented people live in Ural region and we want to give them a chance to become a part of big and global project.

By the way, we are not entirely based in Russia, a sufficient part of our team is located in other countries, like Poland, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Belarus and USA. After the token sale we plan to hire more international employees. Our team and its goals are beyond any political circumstances, the idea of traveling itself is intended to remove the borders and unite people from all over the world.

Q: Do you plan to work with traveling agencies and companies outside of Russia? I reviewed your partners and all of them are concentrated on Russian-speaking travelers. The last time I checked, citizens of US, China and countries EU travel far more often than citizens of Russia. Don’t you think that it would be a better idea to concentrate on the markets with more active travelers?

A: During the last trip to Singapore we achieved an agreement with Singaporean travel and it company ToccoTravel. Their CEO and founder is also going to become our advisor. Establishing more partnerships with different travel and it companies from all over the world is a second step after the TokenSale. Those partners, that we have already attracted are mostly from Russia just because they are close to us and we had an easy opportunity to convince them to become our partners during participation in different blockchain conferences in Moscow, Saint-Petersburg and Ekaterinburg. Entering the global market is quite more challenging and needs lots of resources that’s why we will focus on it a bit later.

Q: How are you going to deal with secondary data market? I will give you an example. Let’s assume that Company X gets access to user information, and after using it for marketing purposes, company sells it to the third party. Instead of using your ecosystem, third party will simply buy “second hand” information for a cheaper price. Besides that it creates risks for your business model it also creates security risks for some of your users. Have you thought of any measures that will prevent that?

A: It is a global data market problem. In our opinion, the solution may come from the type of the market we are entering. In travel industry data has a really short lifecycle. You don’t need to know about where person is planning to go if he has already left that country. It will help us minimize the risks of reselling the data to the third parties.

A few words about privacy. Those companies that are planning to integrate into the platform and will have any kind of access to the user data will have to sign the agreement, which will prohibit them from selling or sharing the private data to the third parties. Companies that will disclose any personal information will take the full responsibility for their actions and will be punished according to the rules of the agreement and the law. They might be permanently banned from any further participation in the ecosystem and will lose the access to any kind of user data forever.

Q: Your whitepaper states that you need 10 million USD for your project development. Don’t you think that’s a little bit too much just for one traveling platform application?

A: Our project is not just one application. It is the data exchange platform which will serve as a base for the travel applications. Our business plan has a complete information about the distribution of those funds. Also, in connection with foregoing, entering the global market will require a lot of funds and resources

Q: Do you think that your revenue will exceed 10 million USD within first couple years, and what gains are expected for your early investors?

A:  The value of the ecosystem is determined by its community, by its users, which create the demand on tokens. The amount of tokens the company holds(the stake) will provide them with a bandwidth for a better and faster access to the data. That’s also one of the potential gains – to get the best and complete data possible faster than their competitors will.

Find out more about the project on the official website on https://travelchain.io/

Please join telegram chat : https://t.me/travelchain

Questions were asked by @GoldmanTrade - the owner of the channel https://t.me/bitafta

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