Dtravel turns vacation rental bookings into NFTs, enabling re-sales

Peer-to-peer vacation rental ecosystem Dtravel is partnering with Polygon, the blockchain technology provider that powers Web3 experiences for brands such as Starbucks and Reddit.

Polygon will enable Dtravel to turn all bookings – made through fiat and crypto currencies – into non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Doing so will enable anyone making a vacation rental booking on Dtravel to securely transfer or resell those nights in Dtravel’s marketplace, for example if they are no longer able to use the booking. And vacation rental operators can earn a commission on those resales, providing an additional source of revenue.

The update is part of Dtravel Direct, the startup’s direct booking product suite for vacation rental operators. The NFTs will be known as Nite Tokens and at the time of booking will transfer from the operator’s smart contract to the guest’s wallet using the Polygon PoS network.

“The Polygon ecosystem is a clear leader when it comes to working with brands and bringing non-Web3 natives on-chain. Dtravel is very much aligned with this ethos and so building on Polygon PoS was a natural fit,” said Cynthia Huang, CEO of Dtravel.

“Furthermore, with tokenizing both fiat and crypto bookings, we need a highly scalable and low-cost solution to support our high booking transaction volume, and this is another area where the Polygon ecosystem shines.”

Founded in 2017, Dtravel is focused on accelerating the adoption of direct bookings for vacation rental operators by offering a blockchain-based, peer-to-peer infrastructure where operators can build their own brand. 

In a statement, Dtravel said the creation of Nite Tokens is part of a larger initiative to create “Nite Protocol, the world’s first open standard booking protocol for the vacation rental industry. … The Nite Protocol will act as a single API connection that anyone can read and write listing and booking data to, eliminating the need for duplicative data and expensive API connections. It aims to effectively dismantle isolated data silos, thus creating a cohesive system where data is transparent, accurate and accessible to all industry participants, significantly reducing costs of building within the industry.”