The Travel Industry Might Be Web3’s Greatest Opportunity for Mass Adoption

If you attend a Web3 conference, have a playlist full of crypto podcasts, or spend vast amounts of time on Discord with other blockchain enthusiasts, you can’t help but feel a palpable excitement about the opportunities available with Web3, the endless use cases, and the growing momentum toward that crypto holy grail:  mass adoption.

Step away from that bubble, though, and the world seems different.  Though it’s been around for more than a decade, the average person still does not understand what Web3 IS, let alone what it could become.  Asking many people what they know about blockchain or crypto, common answers include “Bitcoin”, “NFTs” (not in a positive light), and if they are a bit more savvy, perhaps “crypto mining.”  However, even knowing what crypto mining is can be problematic, as there is still a lack of general knowledge about how blockchain consensus has evolved significantly since the days of Proof of Work.

The battle is uphill, and it not only involves education of an audience that largely doesn’t care, it also involves helping people unlearn information that is not accurate.  Concepts like the entire crypto market crashing permanently in 2022 aren’t unheard of, and this is a real challenge for the Web3 enthusiasts who can see a clear vision of the transformative opportunities.

So what can be done?  Let’s examine a few of the driving factors behind a lack of Web3 mass adoption, and show that one industry in particular just might tick all the boxes for solving this massive roadblock.

Why Is Mass Adoption Stuck?

Experts have many different opinions on exactly why the masses aren’t lining up to activate their crypto wallet and start hopping onto their favorite DEX’s, Web3 social media platforms, or Play2Earn games.  However, there are a number of key themes that tend to overlap most opinions.

The most overwhelming smoking gun is actually somewhat unexpected:  Technology.  Web3 is all about advanced technology, new use cases, thinking about the world (transparency, currency, decentralization) in ways we never have before.  And this is exactly the problem.  If you think about both the builders and the audience for Web3 up to this point, it’s been the bleeding edge early adopters, those who would rather read a 50 page whitepaper than care about a seamless user experience.  The functionality comes first, and the user experience comes in at a distant second, or not at all.  The overuse of technical terminology is a big problem as well, which makes sense as most Web3 platforms consider coining new terms to be a source of differentiation among competitors.  For the hardcore technical audience, it does; from the perspective of the mass audience, it is an entire industry of alien terms, and there isn’t enough incentive in the world to encourage an average user to sort it out.  Other experts point to an overly complicated process for onboarding, which only works if the user is desperate for the product and has no alternative.  “Every click that you need to take in the (onboarding) process, you’re going to lose 50% of people,” said Julie Garneau at a recent Opportunities and Roadblocks of Mass Adoption panel discussion.

However, the most damning of the possible culprits is this:  For the average user, there is no hook, no engagement, no perceived value in Web3.  And this isn’t a problem that is solved from enthusiasts preaching about it.  If there is no incentive to join, and technical roadblocks for those who want to, how can the Web3 ecosystem ever hope to convert the masses?

Perhaps what is needed is a use case that leans hard on all the strengths of Web3, that is applicable to a massive, global audience of all demographics, and that can incorporate Web3 almost in the background instead of an “in your face” approach.  And this is where the travel industry may just be the Web3 hero we’ve needed.

The Travel Industry Needs Web3

Think about it in two parts: What is Web3 really good at, and where can the travel industry improve the most?

• Web3 excels at cross-border commerce with very low transaction fees; if the currency is a token used within an industry without having to exchange/convert, there could even be zero fees.
• Travel often involves working with businesses a single time; if you’re visiting a location once, there is no way to build trust or loyalty directly. User reviews can help with this, but so can smart contracts (eliminating the need for trust) and on-chain transactions that can be seen and not changed.
• Finally, one area where travel is evolving are the online travel agents that bring in many different partners to provide customers with more and more of their holiday planned through a single broker. To the customer, this makes the experience easier.  To the broker, they are happy to provide the service and take a healthy cut.  With Web3 however, the network itself can create a broker-like experience while keeping the exchanges P2P between customers and the actual providers.  This keeps the efficiency and discoverability while reducing costs.

Web3 platforms are creating many different ecosystems to handle the first two elements of borderless currencies and on-chain transparency/security.  However, the third requires a Web3 / Travel marriage that is dedicated to creating a full network of enough travel companies to achieve critical mass.  It also requires a genuine attempt at a user experience, emphasis both on the USER—not a crypto fanatic; think instead of a non-technical person who just wants to explore Italy and could care less what Web3 is); and the EXPERIENCE—something that subdues the use of Web3 more than advertises it.  While a number of travel platforms are being developed, the Camino Network has the most momentum so far and seems to be focused most on creating that critical travel network and developing a non-technical experience for its customers.

Can We Really Achieve Web3 Mass Adoption?

There is still a lot of work to do before we achieve Web3 mass adoption.  Platforms of all types need to re-think, redesign, and rebuild their user interfaces and user experiences to prepare for the non-technical community that may someday make up the majority of Web3 users.  And more importantly, we need to keep pursuing those one or two key use cases that maximize Web3 strengths and apply them to an industry that can make the most use of them.  Right now the best use case is likely the travel experience, as its audience is massive, the travel company ecosystem endless, and the pain points of travel obvious to all.  Hopefully platforms like Camino Network that are focused on improving the travel experience will keep growing, scaling, and succeeding.  If they do, the sky’s the limit for Web3.

Photo by Pietro De Grandi on Unsplash