Sounding Off: Is the future of travel .... travel?

Each Friday, PhocusWire dissects and debates an industry trend or new development covered on our site that week.

Technologist and author Samantha Radocchia points to a myriad of changes that could be felt across the travel industry if (or perhaps, crucially, when) blockchain-underpinned technology comes to the fore.

Most are exciting, many are kind of obvious when you think deeply about what the technology can ultimately do and how it might alter long-standing processes.

Radocchia's world is one that is fundamentally different to the way that the industry is currently run.

This shouldn't be something that scares the incumbents.

We all know, as our theme month on blockchain 2018 demonstrated, there will be winners and losers in this new world.

That is the price of progress and evolution though, most people would admit (perhaps reluctantly).

But it is worth taking a pause, momentarily, to consider what the future really is.

Sure, the application of new technologies, such as those run in the distributed ledger or blockchain form, are likely to change plenty of protocols and existing operations.

But consumers are changing, too, alongside the very idea of tourism and travel itself.

Mobility-as-a-service sounds like a smart phrase to bound around on webinars, in the media and conferences, but the reality is that shared ownership of transportation is likely to have a major impact on how people both work and enjoy their surroundings, including traditional areas such as vehicle rental (hello, Uber).

This is just one element of the changes in the fabric of society, enjoyment and movement that we will all experience (or have to face) in the years to come.

Shared ownership of property has already made its mark in the hospitality sector, as we know, through the rise of Airbnb.

But we should also factor in other things, too, such as biometric technology - an ability to travel and pay for everything with nothing other than a fingerprint or retinal scan.

There will come a time, not too far off, let's face it, when the concept of brands running the experience and hospitality wings of the industry will be replaced in part by individuals. Millions of them. True peer-to-peer.

Blockchain might be at the heart of it, maybe not. But this type of radical change to the structure of how things work is coming.