A hotel in the Dominican Republic, Casa de Campo Resort & Villas, plans on using NFTs as reservation tools, which they’ll offer to their customers. This is one of the first times the crypto industry has witnessed such an initiative and it makes a lot of sense.
Casa de Campo Resort & Villas has signed with a startup, Pinktada for this to be implemented. Pinktada recently launched a booking system that includes hotels across North and Central America. By signing up, the hotel will offer guests to book their hotel rooms by purchasing NFTs through Pinktada.
Compared to those who book regularly, a discount will be given to those who buy through an NFT booking. Moreover, room nights will be for sale as NFTs. These can be sold to other hotel guests, which basically is like StubHub.
The hotel will also get monetary security. The owners will definitely get paid for their rooms, even if guests cancel their reservations. Guests are able to sell their bookings on a marketplace to other interested buyers. Alternatively, they can also use their tokens for other Pinktada hotels.
Noble House Hotels & Resorts also signed with Pinktada so that travelers can use it to make reservations in its two San Francisco hotels, the Hotel Zoe and the Argonaut Hotel.
The senior VP of the Dominican Republic hotel Jason Kycek said, “We can reach another consumer that maybe isn’t booking through traditional means.”
This will not only give hotel owners certainty of income but also give travelers the flexibility if their plans change to sell or swap tokens.
Some hotel owners might be reluctant to sell reservations as NFTs that could be resold for fear of not knowing the identity of their guests.
On the other hand, Pinktada said it addressed this concern by only allowing its members who sign up for free, to participate in its marketplace, and by making membership records available to owners.
While everyone is curious to see how it’s going to unfold, many other hotel groups are embracing crypto and metaverse concepts quite openly. Recently, two of Asia’s biggest hotel groups, Millennium Hotel and Resorts and Regal Hotel Group have stepped into the metaverse by building virtual lands in Decentraland and Sandbox’s metaverse.