Exploring tourism business model importance with the emergence of blockchain system: directions for tourism industry of China

Abstract

The study aims to explore the importance of the tourism business model with the emergence of the blockchain platform in China. The study focused on the importance of the tourism business model of china, studied the need to improve the tourism business infrastructure, and traced the value of the blockchain system in the tourism industry of china. For this, the researchers used a semi-structured interview approach to conduct a qualitative research design. About nine Chinese tourism and travel industry experts were interwar after initial screening using purposive sampling techniques. The respondents’ responses were analyzed by applying a thematic analysis approach, and by this, the researchers extracted the main themes on study topicality to fill the gap in the literature. The study’s novelty is in its topicality and context, for which it also provides viable, practical directions for stakeholders. 

Introduction

Evidence suggests that the rising proportion of online sales has boosted interest in doing business electronically (Calvaresi et al 2019). With the advent of blockchain innovation came the possibility of entirely digital currency. These occurrences have allowed the Central Bank Digital Currency to skyrocket in popularity. Currency issued digitally by a central bank is known as central bank digital currency. A CBDC unit serves as a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a unit of account in the same ways as a paper dollar note (Ozdemir et al. 2020). To put it simply, CBDC is a digital banknote that can purchase products and services, including those in the hospitality and tourist sectors (Antoniadis et al. 2020). The Bahamas, for example, has adopted this new kind of digital economy. Payment innovation is significant in the hotel and tourist industries because of the growing prevalence of e-commerce, especially cross-border purchasing, in these markets. Researchers have analyzed the evolution of online allocation channels in the hospitality and tourist industries over the last few decades (Nam et al 2021). They find a reason for optimism for the future expansion of international online travel sales now that the epidemic is likely nearing its end. Furthermore, CBDC-related payment technology is expected to be a primary factor in the revival of the international tourism industry. However, there are challenges to breakthroughs and technological failures (Valeri and Baggio 2021).

A contributing factor is the incorrect forecast of consumer adoption behavior and the failure to recognize the existence of different types of customers (Valeri 2020). This research supports the idea that the cautious approach is best when adopting new payment methods. The current study is not meant to start a debate about the benefits, drawbacks, or possibilities of CBDC, which have been extensively covered in previous research (Willie 2019). Instead, it aims to chart the course of consumer acceptability in preparation for the seamless introduction of CBDC payment innovation (Luo and Zhou 2021). A growing corpus of literature has emerged to investigate customer experience in the hotel and tourist industries. However, research exploring the evolution and architecture of the customer experience needs to be more comprehensive (Erol et al 2022). To provide a thorough overview of customer experience administration, a significant sub-category of tourist experience, to evaluate the more extensive tourist experience literature, and suggest a structure for managing tourism experience in the hospitality and tourist industries (Tyan et al 2021). The hospitality and tourism sector may benefit from synthesizing the available studies more thoroughly. The study’s goal is to give a rigorous analysis of the expansion of the tourism experience discipline by outlining state of the art in academic research on the topic and carefully charting the expansion and conceptual development of related research in the hospitality and tourist sectors (Wei 2022).

Tourism interaction, multimodal experience design, and social media are only a few examples of the particular issues researched and evaluated by hospitality and tourism (Reinhold et al. 2017). Recently, hospitality and tourism have been done to track disciplinary shifts and provide academics with a better picture of the sector’s growth and trends (Arcese et al 2020). By charting the growth of knowledge and the evolution of the literary landscape through time, the bibliometric Analysis provides a thorough and rigorous assessment of the literature produced in a particular area of inquiry (Rabanser et al. 2005). Thus, this technique can offer a thorough, repeatable, and transparent review. It is essential to pay attention to the development of customer experience research since it, like bibliometric studies, provides a groundwork upon which researchers may build to further the subject (Szromek and Naramski 2019). Since the industry’s sustainability relies on rising demand for its services and goods, more study is required to understand how to entice these consumers to return (Dias et al 2020). Some studies have pointed out the opportunity this pandemic has offered to rethink the tourist business regarding society-socialized tourism. Previous studies conducted a thorough literature evaluation of publications published on the first wave of COVID-19 and the hospitality and tourist business to assist future academics and practitioners in comprehending the effects of the outbreak on these sectors (Matteo and Cavuta 2016; Peric and Wise 2015). When it comes to studies of the hotel and tourist industries, what patterns have emerged in the first wave of coverage of the COVID-19 outbreak?

According to the research titled “the influence of blockchain on the tourist business,” there is nexus between blockchain technology and its possible applications in the tourism industry (Souto 2015). Earlier studies have shown that companies suffer financial consequences when strategic plans and technologies do not mesh (Bilgihan and Nejad 2015). To produce value, a tourist marketing strategy must include cutting-edge digital developments, such as the latest blockchain networks. Therefore, this study focuses on understanding the given research objectives by exploring the value of the tourism business model as per blockchain indicators from a Chinese tourist perspective (Saarinen and Rogerson 2014). To explore the value of the tourism business model with the emergence of blockchain systems in developing tourism-based infrastructure industries (Bieger and Wittmer 2006). To explore the value of blockchain system importance under the tourism business model in the tourist travel sector. To the best of our knowledge, only a few studies have sought to do study blockchain fundamentals as criteria for evaluating DAPPs, even though several white papers have been published on blockchain applications in the tourism and travel sector (Rosato et al 2021). This is the first theoretical contribution. One of the primary goals of this research is to provide a criterion set for evaluating DAPPs in terms of universal blockchain fundamentals applicable to the tourist sector. Thus, the second theoretical contribution is the provision and validation of the criteria. The study also recommends practical directions, which is the first practical contribution. Secondly, the study also contributes practically by assessing the blockchain business model from the tourism industry perspective of China and replying to an important aspect that does blockchain system is an element of hope for growth in the Chinese tourism industry. Hence, it is the second practical contribution of the primary research.

Literature review

The study inquired characterize the concept of experience as a whole, they said, “what people crave are not things but pleasant experiences (Huang et al. 2009).” Growing out of this foundation, the tourist experience has been a hot issue since the 1970s, implying its uniqueness from regular life (Scheepenss et al. 2016). Among the many definitions, tourism is “simply a brief reversal of ordinary activities—it is a no-work, no-care, no-thrift condition” it captures the essence of the need for novelty and the unfamiliarity that many travelers want (Chen and Yung 2004). Their definition of customer experience as “events that engage people in a personal manner” is often cited as two of the first academics to conceive customer experience. They emphasized the individuality of customer experience by pointing out the significance of customers' varying levels of physical, spiritual, and emotional involvement (Mohamad and Hamzah 2013). For example, define customer experience as “a customer’s cognitive, emotional, behavioral, sensorial, and social reactions to a firm’s offers across the customer’s complete buying process.” As a result, “customer experience” encompasses many different aspects (Palos-Sanchez et al. 2021). Differentiating customer experience from other customer-related constructs like customer satisfaction and loyalty, service quality, customer relationship management, and customer engagement has been an ongoing goal of academic research (Andrianto et al. 2021). These differences have been essential in illuminating the many innovations and advancements in the field of customer experience research made by academics, for additional differentiation from the concepts mentioned earlier, defined customer experience as “non-deliberate, spontaneous responses, and reactions to specific stimuli” (Reier Forradellas et al. 2021).

Individuals’ perceptions of an innovation’s utility are described by its features, as outlined by. It is easy to track down research projects that have embraced the idea of innovation characteristics because of the light it sheds on consumer adoption rates (Vecchio et al. 2021). The features of innovations were defined as a multi-faceted concept that includes comparative advantage, compatibility, complexity, and observability (Rosato et al. 2021). To start, “relative advantage” is “the degree to which an invention is viewed as superior to the notion it succeeds.” Similarly, one’s perception of relative advantage is often described in terms of monetary gain, practicality, and social standing (Sigala 2021). Next, we have compatibility, which shows the extent to which customers think a new product or service is in line with their preexisting values (Szromek et al. 2021). These values may include cultural norms, personal preferences, and prior experiences and expectations (Bulchand-Gidumal 2022). The degree to which an invention is considered difficult to use and comprehend is called its complexity (Li et al. 2021). As a result, it could be more user-friendly, and any innovations are sorted into categories based on their level of complexity, reducing their likelihood of being widely adopted. Thus, complexity is a detriment to the degree of innovation characteristics, especially compared to the other four sub-dimensions of innovation characteristics. The term “observability” describes how noticeable the results of adopting an invention are to others. Customers are more likely to adopt new technology if they can quickly and easily learn how their lives will improve as a consequence of using it (Breier et al. 2021).

Central bank digital currencies (CBDC) payment, a technology in the monetary system, may also be understood in light of features of innovations. CBDC payment is more efficient, cost-saving, cleaner, and risk-free, but it is not generally applied across areas (Battour et al. 2021). Since today’s customers are used to digitalization and individuals are adequately exposed to digital currencies such as bitcoin, compatibility of CBDC payment is developed. CBDC provided user-friendly, social-media-integrated interfaces on the technology. In addition, technological development encourages the creation of a less complicated method for CBDC use, creating an impression of a simple payment system (Szromek and Polok 2022). The five-step model described above has been frequently used to shed light on the factors contributing to an audience’s ultimate decision to embrace a new concept. Needs and environmental factors often motivate consumers to become aware of a product or service and consider adopting it (Buhalis et al. 2022). Customers making CBDC purchases may realize they need a novel payment mechanism that addresses the limitations of the standard method of making such purchases. There is no room for the payment system to develop due to developments in IT and digital networks. Meanwhile, people learn about cryptocurrency through both industrial and non-commercial sources.

In this early stage of consumer acceptance, consumers need more motivation to seek information actively. However, once consumers, the likelihood of CBDC payment increases, enter the stage of interest. Consumers have little incentive to weigh the merits of CBDC payment without some incentive. Customers are interested in using CBDCs as a form of payment (Curtin and Bird 2022). In particular, it argued that familiarity is a crucial factor positively correlated with the acceptance of digital financial inclusion. If the evaluation turns out poorly, customers may decide against participating in the trial at this point. On the contrary, the positive evaluative imagination drives buyers to take the first step toward a purchase (Falardeau et al. 2022). It is assumed that customers take action toward utilizing the after they have reached a favorable decision. The last phase of consumer adoption is influenced by trial intentions, which encourage adoption. Similar arguments were made by those who underlined the need to offer free trials of specialized services to boost acceptance (Guan et al 2022).

Methodology

Research design and sampling

Qualitative research techniques were used for this investigation. The views of experts on BTC and related projections for the results of adopting BCT have been deemed to be an appropriate method for addressing the study objectives. To find out more about the potential effects of BCT on tourist intermediaries, we enlisted their help in conducting this study. For this, researchers selected 12 experts from the Chinese tourism industry, and sufficient information was acquired using a semi-structured interview approach. The motivations for selecting Chinese experts in tourism are multiple, including the large size of the tourist industry, emerging frontiers of Chinese tourism and travel agencies, and rising tourist visits to China. In correspondence to these reasons, it is noted that the Chinese bitcoin industry was worth $600 billion in 2017, expenditure on blockchain applications totaled $2.1 billion worldwide in 2018, and the use of distributed ledger technology is projected to increase. While more deregulation may be possible by creating a blockchain-based framework, little is known. Researchers need to learn more about the company’s many players, especially their expertise and Blockchain technology experience thought that it might have been preferable to apply the qualitative methodology to handle any possible uncertainties and complete its study objectives.

Moreover, considering the topicality of the study purposive sampling technique is applied. Understanding of BCT was gleaned from the participants’ experiences in this research. Years of training were a significant factor in determining their expert status. Participants were chosen because of their long-term experience in the sector (at least 10 years). The need for these experts was validated by only they could shed light on how blockchain technology would affect the tourist sector and, more particularly, the intermediates that work within it. They were seen to be more credible because of their extensive knowledge. This method established a framework based on real-world data collected from industry insiders.

The researcher interviewed several professionals to get their thoughts on how the introduction of blockchain technology would alter the future of mediators in the tourist sector. This was accomplished using a combination of tractor-trailer in-person and online interviews with both open- and closed-ended questions directed at many industry leaders with extensive experience in cryptocurrency technology in business. When investigating a novel or developing technology like Blockchain, interviews with subject-matter experts are an efficient means of gathering information. How distributed ledger technology may help the travel industry become more decentralized. Because of the limited number of individuals with the necessary expertise to address the research issues in detail, qualitative data collection was preferable for this investigation. The number of experts who participated was targeted through purposive sampling and an informed consent form was also sent to respective participants. After their willingness, the participants were finalized and the appointments for interviews were taken. Then on said date and time, semi-structured interviews were conducted. This criterion was to have reached the point when no further information could have been provided. It is, therefore, more specifically, after speaking with six blockchain industry professionals, we realized we had gathered enough data for our study.

The researcher interviewed three more persons after realizing they would not provide any new information for the study. Before conducting the interviews, questions were devised to focus on how Blockchain may be used in the travel business. At the outset of each conversation, interviewees were asked questions designed to elicit their thoughts on blockchain technology and its possible effects on the tourist sector. All parties seemed to agree that blockchain technology might significantly affect this sector. The “popularity of blockchain is that it is utilized for cryptocurrency,” said one responder, “despite concrete instances of its applicability in other areas.” Similarly, “blockchain has a big possible effect on practically every sector, and numerous applications will also be created,” as confirmed by some other responder. “There are various applications of blockchain technology and its applications, such as safe and secure transactions using cryptocurrencies, evaluations on the reliability of tourism products, and directly engaging with telecom operators without the services of middlemen,” the researchers concluded.

Data analysis technique—thematic analysis

The Analysis of the information was done by use of a thematic approach. Besides its methodologic framework, theme analysis is also seen as a data analysis tool. Provide a 6-step process used to examine the data in this research Table 1.

1. During the first stage (familiarization), transcripts and audio recordings of the interviews were made. The documents were then studied to obtain a complete summary of the findings.

2. (creating first codes) included highlighting the substance of the statements or sentences using abbreviated labels or “codes” to characterize them. There have been 350 codes retrieved thus far. In Table 2, Respondent # 6 is an example of this labeling.

3. themes were incorporated after a thorough review of the codes revealed recurring patterns. Multiple codes were merged into one consistent whole.

4. (reviewing themes) included going back to the initial data set to check whether the themes were representative of the data and whether or not they were helpful. Researchers gave the overarching themes and their constituent subthemes clear, concise,

5. (the naming and defining of themes). Twenty-six sub-themes were identified, combined into eight overarching themes, then labeled before the final model could be produced.

Table 1.

Relative power of core themes

Participants	Business Model	Transaction Speed	Infrastructure	Blockchain Value	Trust	Decentralization
1	6	13	7	10	20	11
2	11	21	16	23	9	19
3	8	9	18	18	5	27
4	5	8	19	12	6	5
5	9	10	5	16	2	1
6	8	11	8	21	8	3
7	5	13	5	19	1	7
8	4	15	2	10	7	8
9	2	12	7	8	9	6

Table 2.

Frequency of major themes

Theme title	Respondent Source	References
Tourism business model	4	91
TBM1	8	32
TBM2	1	9
TBM3	7	40
TBM4	9	27
TBM5	2	13
TBM6	3	27
TBM7	5	21
TBM8	4	10
TBM9	3	19
Value of blockchain system	9	12
VBS1	6	41
VBS2	5	29
VBS3	4	27
VBS4	7	31
VBS5	8	8
VB6	5	14
Improving tourism infrastructure	2	101
T11	7	23
TI2	8	17
TI3	9	29
Decentralization	4	20
DEC1	6	14
DEC2	5	10
DEC3	9	19

The value chain on the blockchain platform for the tourist sector is, and the associated services and product names are included in Table 3. The outcomes of the data analysis were written up in Stage 6. Interviewee No. 6 was asked about the four primary areas shown in Table 2 below: customers, products and services, IT management, and finances. This table also displays the extracted ideas. The ideas gleaned from the interviews about goods and services are shown in Table 3, along with the overarching themes and subthemes that emerge from those concepts (proposed value).

Table 3.

Extraction of main themes

Theme	Frequency	Parameters
Tourism business model	91	Growing possible transfers of handiworks
		Growing and upholding assets of sightseeing
		Digital importance of tourism materials
		Building tourism trust
		Speeding up and maintaining tourism-based tourist information
		Maintaining transparency at the tourism level
		Building tourists’ quality of life
		Enhance tourists loyalty
Value of blockchain system	101	Secure transactions
		Less vulnerability
		Reduce the cost of tourists transaction
		Streamline process
		Automation of tourism business process
		Transparency
Improving tourism infrastructure	81	No third party
		Improve the cost of infrastructure
		No single point of failure
Decentralization	79	Peer-to-peer Network
		No centralized control
		No intermediaries

Results and discussion

Qualitative results

Blockchain is still in its infancy, and several groups should be working on expanding upon its current capabilities. As the number of users and the size of Blockchain platforms grows, several issues need to be addressed, including the need to improve scalability, privacy, security, computational effectiveness, energy usage, consensus models, intelligent contracts, education of the future workforce, and more. However, in this part, we want to expand on the research gaps in the sustainability sector, especially in light of the possibilities presented by Blockchain and SMEs.

Value of blockchain system in the Chinese tourism industry

Our Analysis of the existing literature shows a need for more academic investigation into the crucial issue of the long-term viability of industry and Blockchain. We have identified five main streams of research needs that, when addressed, allow the scientific community to create conditions for Chinese industry to benefit sustainability objectives. These include creating new achievement measures and life cycle analysis methods, creating new data-driven decision-making methods, exploring new case studies and best practices, and creating new standards and regulations. It is crucial to develop innovative performance indicators and life cycle evaluation techniques because: SMEs’ capabilities allow for more precise monitoring of products across their entire lifespans, as well as the collection of data that has previously been unavailable but is now helpful for estimating environmental and social impacts. While improvements in data collection have been made, present LCA approaches use only some of the possibilities that have arisen. The environmental assessment disciplines must catch up with industry regarding technological development. Traditionally, LCA has been carried out in four stages: objective setting, inventory analysis, impact assessment, and result interpretation. There needs to be more debate about how Blockchain and industry would facilitate the inventory analysis and data collection phase in Table 1. However, there needs to be evidence of advanced impact assessment methods developed in the research to utilize the value created in the inventory analysis phase.

About 47% of the papers reviewed and chosen offered the structure that offers the most cutting-edge ways to use blockchain technology across various industries. Thirty percent of the reviewed articles provide blockchain-based solutions to challenges in various fields. About 2% of all research publications were reviewed, and current techniques, solutions, and future directions were examined based on the included studies. In addition, these studies, which account for 4% of all analyses published, include analyses of existing systems and comparisons of alternative approaches. Almost 5% of the articles were technical reports, and the survey includes experience pieces covering a wide range of research.

Value of blockchain in developing tourism-based infrastructure

Moreover, we chose two examples that are perfect for blockchain innovation. About 2% of the publications were review articles. Public blockchains and developing tourism-based infrastructure are the most popular category, with 49.17 percentage points of the total number of publications discussing them. Bitcoin is the most widely used public Blockchain, although Ethereum also has a sizable user base. The hybrid Blockchain later became a popular option. Of the total 35 publications we looked at, nine were about hybrid blockchains (29.1%). Hybrid blockchains can adapt to new data access regulations while maintaining a closed environment. Cosmo and Smilo are the forerunners of the developing hybrid Blockchain. Hybrid blockchain implementations, in which Ethereum participates, are prospering. In addition, Blockchain in developing based tourism infrastructure has identified private blockchains. The private Blockchain sits atop Hyper-ledger. Some case studies, including those by, have examined a mix of blockchain types; for example, both Public and Private blockchains were covered in these works. Just 4.17% of all academic publications addressed public and private blockchains, with just five studies covering both. Two more research reached similar conclusions. The studies reviewed the literature in a specific field by discussing how public and Hybrid blockchains work together.

The value proposition of blockchain system in the tourism business model of China

Studies in the green cluster use phenomenological views and theoretical frameworks to uncover fundamental characteristics of the hospitality and tourist experience. This group widely used contributions given the early work on the phenomenological study of the traveler experience. Additionally, fundamental experiential elements of consuming were described. The central theme and expertise in customer experience in hospitality and tourism in Table 3 proposed fundamental conceptual shifts that may be used to frame the tourism experience. These shifts include an emphasis on complementary and relative interpretations and a redirected attention to pluralizing conceptualizations of blockchain systems in the tourism business in china.

The research traced widespread use to investigate the impact of environmental stimuli on consumers’ perceptions and attitudes. Similarly, understanding motivation and expectation creation is essential for deciphering the psychological underpinnings of human behavior. To quantify intangible qualities of personality, outlook, and experience, the psychometric theory provides a method for psychological assessment. Specifically, it analyzed the affective impact of hedonic tourist spots on visitors.

Discussion

Those in the bottom right corner represent primary and recurrent ideas. Groupings in this region have a low degree of similarity and are related by many keywords. They signify essential yet underexplored ideas. There are three groups located in this section of the map. Cluster one includes text mining, social media, and sentiment analysis. This line of inquiry focuses on deciphering and forecasting traveler sentiment from unstructured data posted by service users across social media platforms using AI technological and analytical processes. Text analysis, content analysis, social network analysis, trend assessment, geographical analysis, predictive analytics, and comparative analysis are a few of the many forms of analysis that have been found in the literature. Several researchers integrated several analytic approaches, including text mining and sentiment analysis. Opinions and thoughts regarding tourist services are analyzed using text mining to determine the most commonly used terms. In contrast, sentiment analysis determines the valence of these phrases and the degree to which they are subjective.

The second set of related studies focuses on how the Internet of Things (IoT) and large amounts of data might improve the tourist industry. For example, “a new technology paradigm that links everything and anybody at any time and location, resulting in novel applications and services” is how the Internet of Things (IoT) is described. The literature supports the IoT’s role in better understanding visitor behavior, increasing value generation, expanding customer services, and upgrading guests’ overall experiences. Big data relies heavily on the IoT and has enormous promise in T&H. T&H has been sluggish to embrace the Internet of Things (IoT) solutions as an industry. Innovative and sustainable urban and rural development is possible because of the Internet of Things and big data. Such helped pave the way for fresh ideas, methods, and information to be applied to intelligent and sustainable tourism. As a result of the widespread panic caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, several service sectors, including T&H, were forced to implement measures to reduce or eliminate customer and staff contact with the human population. As a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, there has been an increase in the number of times that robots are used in T&H. Consequently, several researchers have looked at the prevalence of robots, their efficiency, and their application to guaranteeing a significant geographical separation during the pandemic.

To a large extent, they are symbolic of either fresh ideas just beginning to be explored or ideas on the verge of being abandoned. Examples include the rise of the service robot industry and the increased focus on customer experience in light of modern technology and the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Similarly, there has been a rise in interest in robotics in recent years. Improved client experiences, lower labor costs, more efficient service operations, and more collaborative value creation are all made possible by robots (give an overview of robotics research in T&H and propose paths for future study; investigate the future potential of service robots, and investigate the impact robots might have on day-to-day service operations. After guest interactions with frontline robots in hotels, responsibility for service outcomes is investigated. Interestingly, they discovered that clients hold people more responsible for service failure than they do robots, even though frontline robots are seen as better representatives of a hotel than staff. Guests’ value co-creation and advocacy intents were studied more recently by those who looked at the impact of service robot traits on the robots.

Forecasts of post-COVID tourism arrivals and the economic effect of COVID-19 on the efficiency of business firms are all included in this subject. Using time series forecasting, approximated international tourist arrivals for 20 locations; estimated global tourist arrivals across 20 countries using a scenario-based, two-step mixed method that included time series analysis. Foregone tourist expenditure in Sri Lanka may be estimated using monthly data on visitor arrivals and Google Trends. In contrast, visitor arrivals in 20 Asia Pacific nations can be estimated using statistical and judgmental forecasting approaches. Air traveler preparedness may be predicted using a combination of big data analytics, information from Skyscanner’s flight search logs, and a traffic light dashboard, providing insights into how the tourist industry might rebound after a pandemic. Firm-level impact of the COVID pandemic on Spanish hospitality firms using the Logit model and solvency stress test, and conclude that businesses with little operational leverage are better able to weather the storm. The loss to the tourism and hospitality business due to lower demand for incoming passengers is predicted in the previous research. However, the research also forecasts a reactivation of the tourist sectors that would allow these sectors to recover. Findings from studies that confirm or disprove these estimates would significantly increase the financial impact on this sector.

Theoretical and practical implications

There are many theoretical ramifications of this study. In the first place, the findings corroborated the study by that incorporating tourism into a bitcoin blockchain leads to the development of novel services, organizational models, and economic approaches within the sector. In addition, the suggested model takes a comprehensive perspective of the tourist marketplace, much like the Osterwalder model. Through peer-to-peer marketplaces and intelligent contracts, Blockchain is the cutting-edge innovation driving the expansion of this industry, fostering confidence in nations that adopt it and ensuring the privacy and security of all parties involved. By creating a trustworthy and straightforward distributed framework in the context of publicly available blockchain technology and developing intelligent contracts, activists in the tourism industry facilitate direct transactions between domestic and international visitors (customers) and hosts, thereby eliminating the need for intermediaries. As a result, the digital identification of tourist goods and intellectual property protection may be maintained while visibility is improved for all relevant parties. In addition, it aids in accelerating delivery, which boosts customer loyalty and the need for repeat visits from visitors and the advantages for both the sending and receiving nations. Some managerial applications may be drawn from this research as well.

The findings of this study place particular emphasis on two themes: first, the importance of payment systems to the blockchain product’s tourist marketing strategy; and second, the removal of middlemen. The elimination of intermediaries does not imply the elimination of travel companies, as several respondents feared would happen if the innovation widened the ranks of leading companies or spawned new intermediates. It shifts their focus and improves their operations. Introducing a blockchain platform transforms travel firms into facilitators, paving the way for efficient preparation. Agreements provide the most cost-effective, fully-automated handling of any queries, permissions (including visas), ticketing (airplane, museum, water park, etc.), hotel bookings, and finances under control. These are completed with the help of machine learning and IoT. The requirement for local and international evaluations to evaluate the legitimacy of the agencies will be reduced if the function of organizations is shifted from the financial intermediary to facilitating, giving travelers more confidence in their destination choices. Brokerage fees, which are passed on to the customer and the traveler, are reduced or eliminated because of blockchain technology.

Blockchain technology ensures that all transactions related to a guest’s stay and departure from a location are recorded and stored without any alterations or manipulations. Quasi (which led to falsehoods and dishonesty by travel agents and imposed on the passenger) is the root cause of the additional illicit financial intermediary cost that will be abolished. Blockchain technology’s decentralization of the tourist sector is primarily responsible for the lack of distortion and the resulting positive changes. When the rules and processes are set and agreed upon by the parties engaged in the smart contract, they are implemented automatically, which ensures accountability and material security and, in turn, fosters confidence among visitors and guests. In general, Agreements may help eliminate the need for exceptions and cut down on conflicts. Nevertheless, several overarching hurdles to blockchain management must be overcome. The chambers of commerce, tourist educational facilities, colleges, and academies of industry and tourism might all play a role in addressing the issue of insufficient blockchain knowledge and expertise by providing specialized training in Blockchain and tourism. The second problem is that there are no established guidelines to follow. Laws should be passed by authorities to make it easier for blockchain technology to be adopted by prospective companies and travel agencies worldwide. Because of this, they will have a simpler time adjusting their company strategies. Before lawmakers in any home nation can use it to make it easier to consider removing legal obstacles to incorporating Blockchain in business owners, nevertheless, investigators in the tourism and hospitality sectors in any country must first address the pathological changes of creating the required technologies to place the tourist industry business strategy in the blockchain systems.

Conclusion and future directions

The aim of the study is to explore the importance of the tourism business model with the emergence of the blockchain platform in China. The study focused on the importance of the tourism business model of china, studied the need to improve the tourism business infrastructure, and traced the value of the blockchain system in the tourism industry of china. A great deal of study has been done, and it has contributed much to the conceptual groundwork and intellectual growth of related fields. Given the significance of this concept, this research used a mixed-methods approach consisting of quantitative bibliometric Analysis followed by qualitative theme assessment to explore the knowledge structure of customer experience issues. Our results shed light on previously unnoticed lines of inquiry into the consumer experience and reveal hidden academic patterns of semantic similarity. This paper uses lexical and temporal networks to analyze the literature on customer experience management and customer experience marketing over 23 years. Investigation of the company experience has progressed from establishing the conceptual underpinnings and elucidation for developing tourist knowledge scales and empirical networks among various components during three time periods. Not only do our results reflect the current state of the art in customer experience research, but they also anticipate future developments in fields like augmented reality, COVID-19, nostalgia, smart tourism, and perceived risk. Research into the customer experience might be expanded by concentrating on these areas. As a means of uncovering the phenomena of the experience economy, Our balanced theory-based qualitative content assessment provides an overarching framework for understanding the customer’s journey and developing actionable insights. In this article, we comprehensively review the literature on guests’ experiences in the hospitality and tourist industries. This study is the first to systematically provide several interesting new avenues for investigation within customer experience literature. Following technical advances and the COVID-19 epidemic, there are several conceptual, theoretical, and actual possibilities to expand the nature and extent of customer experience.

The findings of this study will aid in developing academic and vocational curricula that will better prepare today’s and tomorrow’s industry workforces to meet the challenges of the future. The findings of the research have real-world relevance. For that reason, managers must gather as much information as possible and consider all angles before making a decision. The current Analysis sheds light on some of the most pressing concerns and prospects for others in the hotel and tourism sector as they pertain to COVID-19. The research contains a few limitations. As a first limitation, the data was obtained relatively quickly and came from the single-source Scopus database. In the future, researchers may also use data from other reputable sources to build upon their existing work. More specific keywords, such as hotels, restaurants, sports, and other tourism-related phrases, might be used in future investigations to locate the relevant literature. In addition, only scholarly journals were used as study sources, whereas conference papers and other book chapters were disregarded. These might be used in further study to help further our understanding of the subject. Future research may benefit from more sophisticated bibliometric assessment techniques to gain insight from the existing literature.

Author contribution

Write up corrections, data curation, supervision: Haiying Liu; visualization, editing, writing of draft: Jiang Nan; writing and software: Geovanny Genaro Reivan Ortiz; writing, editing, and visualization: Phan The Cong; conceptualization, methodology, Tran Thi Thu Phuong; review, visualization: Worakamol Wisetsri.

Funding

This paper was supported by Analysis of the intergrated developemnt path of the Culture and Tourism in Western part of Beijing during the era of big data (BGY2022KY-29).

Data Availability

Data is publicly available at mentioned sources in the data section.

Declarations

Ethical approval and consent to participate

We declare that we have no human participants, human data, or human issues.

Consent for publication

We do not have any individual person’s data in any form and we give consent for publication in true letter and spirit.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.