KAZAN, November 3. /TASS/. Blockchain technology will seriously change tourism market in 5-10 years, head of Russia’s Federal Agency for Tourism Oleg Safonov said at the 'Kazan Tourism Forum 2017 on Friday.
"We are absolutely convinced in our federal agency that blockchain will seriously change the tourism market, although, in our opinion, it will happen bot in two years but in 5-10 years," he said. Safonov did not elaborate saying "only that the nature of these changes is the topic of a separate discussion."
According to Safonov, the tourism industry is on the verge of major changes in connection with the emergence of new digital technologies. In particular, blockchain can be used to improve the quality of services for tourists, he said.
"Of course, the technologies that are being created now they allow tourists, consumers to work directly with providers (of services) removing all the intermediaries. This makes the product better in quality, less expensive and also increases the provider’s responsibility for the product," he said.
Blockchain is the technology of distributed databases (ledgers) based on continuously extended chain of records and resistant to forgery, review, hacking and theft of information. The work with cryptocurrencies including bitcoin is based on this technology.