DER Touristik Online, Lufthansa Group, and Chain4Travel Partner on Web3 Initiative for Sustainable Aviation

Leading players from the travel and aviation sectors come together to explore sustainable aviation solutions via a web3 travel ecosystem.

With the global travel industry under increasing pressure to enhance its sustainability practices, a partnership has been formed to address the challenge. DER Touristik Online (DTO), Lufthansa Group and the Web3 startup Chain4Travel have combined their industry expertise in a hackathon to integrate the Camino Network’s capabilities into the broader quest for sustainable aviation.

Held in Frankfurt, the week-long hackathon witnessed DTO developers diving deep into the world of tokenization, targeting a platform that could facilitate the consumption of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) within the Camino Network, Cointelegraph reported on September 21. 

This initiative comes from rising environmental considerations in the travel sector and the potential ways technology can serve those ends: 

“The competing teams focused on creating a compelling and simplified way for travelers to obtain SAF credits when booking a vacation, tracing their carbon emission reductions, and conceiving new ways of gamifying the process of acquisition and expenditure of SAF.”

The victors introduced a novel concept: a loyalty program underpinned by “Dertorium”, a green token that acts as a beacon of a collective commitment to environmental preservation. This token, they proposed, would harmoniously coexist alongside existing loyalty systems rather than usurping them.

DTO, focusing on online sales and travel technology, employs a workforce of approximately 9,200. On the other hand, the Lufthansa Group, boasting over 100,000 employees, reported revenues of over 32 billion euros in 2022. Rounding out the partnership, Chain4Travel brings its specialization in blockchain applications for the travel industry.

Despite many developers having limited prior exposure to Web3 technology, the guidance from BytePitch plans to help the learning curve. As a recognized name in the Camino community, they rolled out functional prototypes on the Camino Network’s Columbus testnet in under four days.

While the hackathon’s immediate outputs are promising, sustainability in the aviation world must be addressed, Ralf Usbeck, CEO of Chain4Travel, said about the partnership. “At Chain4Travel, we loved the approach as it zeroes on what makes a use case compelling on blockchain, and Camino Network especially.”