Quote from: gpuk on October 10, 2017, 01:14:33 PM

Hi Winding Tree team

I've read through the whitepaper (like the MVM approach btw!) and have a few questions:

1. Given the fact distribution in the travel industry is controlled by only a handful of huge, entrenched players; how do you envisage bootstrapping your marketplace? As I see it, you have a classic chicken and egg problem (suppliers will only invest in getting their inventory into Winding Tree if there are consumers; consumer will only use Winding Tree if there is a comparable level of inventory choice available through it compared to existing channels). To complicate it further, due to the existing power dynamics in the industry, small and medium sized suppliers will find it very hard to embrace WT (technically, and relationship/business contract wise) without risking getting cut out by their existing distributors.

2. For WT to work, travel suppliers (hotels, airlines) are going to need to make large investments in their IT platforms and back-office processes to integrate with WT. Travel buyers (agents, B2C sites etc.) are also going to need to invest in working with your blockchain (versus consuming a simple REST/SOAP API from aggregators/GDS providers as they do today). That's a lot of upfront dev work and the travel industry is not known for its IT competency. In fact, most suppliers, aggregators and travel retailers today actually use tech provided from the very companies Winding Tree is trying to disrupt (Amadeus, Sabre, Travelport etc.). Where are all these participants going to find the talent and vision they need to build in-house integrations to the WT blockchain? I feel like all they will end up doing is moving the cost of distribution to the cost of integration (i.e. having to pay high priced consultants to create back-end software for them).

3. Your whitepaper mentions the need for massive improvements in the volume of transactions that can be processed (either on or off chain) in order to support the scale needed by the travel industry. With things like LN and plasma still years away, how comfortable are you that the necessary t/x volume support will come to WT in good enough time so as not to harm your scale up?

4. It seems to me that the main problem WT proposes to solve (removing the concentration of distribution from the hands of a few big gatekeepers) could be solved with industry adoption of standardized and open intercom protocols. The airline industry is already seeing this with NDC, for example. This way, the marketplace gets the same benefit of WT (i.e. lower barrier to entry for new startups; reduced overhead, complexity and waste through open standardization; easier/more affordable for less technically savvy suppliers to participate etc.) but without the need to completely re-invent distribution from the ground up and everything in to a blockchain. Or put another way, why do you so hastily dismiss NDC as being a viable blueprint for the rest of the travel sector to learn from?

Hey there.

great questions.

1) First of all we're not building a marketplace ourselves, in fact we'll just offer inventory which comes directly from the supplier to anyone. So people can book directly through the blockchain or marketplaces can be built around winding tree which source inventory from the platform. We have been working on the on-boarding of partners - and Lufthansa was the first partnership we've been able to announce officially. There's a lot of interest on the supplier side - it's more the legal hassle that slows us down.

2) Correct - so with the suppliers we've talked to the aim is to initially push inventory to the blockchain live and in the long-term integrate winding tree at the source i.e. the Property Management System. That's another reason why we've been pushing to working with suppliers as we can work together with them to find ideal solutions for making integration as seamless as possible. Overall cost of integration is a fixed cost, distribution is a variable cost which occurs at every booking. If you consider the commission rates suppliers are paying it should be a very profitable investment.

3) For travel bookings you don't necessarily need instant verification. In fact it's very likely you'll be booking something that's a couple of days out or even months. But in the general scheme of things we are looking closely at all scaling projects and already talking to some to see what the best path for us could be on scalability.

4) NDC has been tried, everyone just integrated their own version of NDC. I think we need a radical change in distribution, and to enable everyone to get access to inventory and resell it blockchain is the ideal solution. We also believe in the benefits of decentralized networks.