Last weekend two events triggered me to research the Travala travel service. One was the selling of HIVE to acquire more AVA (the native crypto token of Travala) by our own Trumpman. The other was the plan to meet-up and spend some quality time with a good friend. She lives on Ibiza (Spain), I live in Amsterdam (Netherlands).

No dates set yet, I played around a little with my go to webservices "Skyscanner" and "KLM" (Dutch airliner) and of course Travala.

^{sunset at Ibiza: from my July 2020 trip to this magical island}

Travala Test

To test Travala, I used three different dates with various durations to gather the costs for the flights (roundtrip). Details are presented in the table below.

• Travala offers are more expensive in all cases, up to twice the costs of the least expensive service
• Travala doesn't provide any results for Test case 3: An message is provided airliners schedules are disrupted due to COVID19
• Travala doesn't offer flights for the budget and semi-budget airliners. For trips between Amsterdam and Ibiza, these airliners include: Easyjet, Transavia, Ryanair, Vueling.

Note: KLM doesn't offer flights in December, not direct, not with a stay over. Though they work together with AirEurope and normally offer flights under code share. Maybe the COVID times and the renewed lockdowns in many of the EU countries, play a role. Interesting to notice Travala offered flights with AirEurope for the December trip.

^{todays research: November 2 2020}

Travala Key Data

• Travala is established in 2017
• Travala offers airline tickets and accommodation
• Partnerships with Booking.com, Agoda and Expedia
• Accepts normal currencies and payment methods as well as crypto currencies
• Backed by Binance

Investment Possibility: Crowdfunding (equity share)

Travala is offering equity share through a crowdfunding program. It is still open to participate. The crowdfunding partner is Crowdcube.

• Target: 500k UK Pounds
• Raised: around 1M UK Pounds (92% overfunded already)
• Investors: 547
• 25 days left for the crowdfunding

Note: Travala mentioned their pre-money valuation is 17,5M UK Pounds

Investment Possibility: AVA (native crypto token)

Another possibility is to follow Trumpman, and purchase AVA tokens. The current marketcap is around 30M US$.

My Thoughts as a User

Though I may include Travala when I'm in search for flights, I don't have high hopes Travala is cost effective. In most cases even my national carrier KLM offers lower fees on their flights compared with Travala. That said, I like the possibility to pay the flight costs with crypto tokens. But, most of crypto tokens I hold, I hold as investment. Therefore I think it'll be unlikely I'll us my investment money to purchase airline tickets. In case Travala is cost effective, I may use their service and pay with fiat currencies.

My Thoughts on Investment Opportunities

Travel is a very interesting sector. Every year, more people travel around the world. For many to spend their vacations, to visit relatives and friends, and for business. I expect this to increase a lot over time, since we will be granted more time for ourselves due to the every increasing robotisation. In the next 3 to 5 decades we may face the opportunity to spend 24x7 doing things we like, since we don't have to work anymore. Technology will offer us this possibility. I think this is a given, rather than a possibility. This will for sure result in more movements of people. All travels will require forms of transportation and a forms of accommodation.

Travala operates in the fiat world, and at the same time also in the crypto world. The later by using blockchain technology for the service it offers, as well as accepting crypto currencies as a payment currency. That in itself make Travala even more interesting to invest in. The question is: In what to invest? By purchasing the native token AVA, or by investing in the company through the crowdfunding project?

I really have to think about this one. I do like to own equity of companies. Equity based crowdfunding is perfect for this. But what do I invest in? What does the equity contain? The blockchain is not proprietary of Travala as far as I understand. At some point they may want to decentralise more of the service, including the UI, reducing tangible assets further. That said, when playing the agent role for airline tickets and accommodation costs, a kickback fee applies. I suppose these kickback fees is what will give the equity in Travala value, even when the blockchain holding the contracts is in public hands.

The crowdfunding is still open for 25 days, so I have some time to decide. Maybe both is nice: Would be the first time to own a piece of a company and a chunk of the crypto tokens giving value to the storage network for the service. Sounds interesting! :)

Disclaimer: Above information is not meant to be financial advise. Do your own research in case you intend to invest or use the service.

HAPPY TRAVEL

_{qsounds music & story library | A...K | L...Z |}
^{hive curator for curie}