Cool Cousin: Bringing Community Driven Travel Agency to Blockchain

in #blockchain7 years ago (edited)

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Had I known, I should not have embarked on this journey. How often do you utter this statement at the end of an adventure?

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About three years ago, 25th of May, 2015, more than 50% of final year students from the department of botany, in University of Accra, Ghana, made a tour to visit Osogbo, Osun state, Nigeria. The journey was well anticipated by would be adventurers, it was a three days journey to Nigeria, from Ghana. More than 90% of the adventurers has never been to Nigeria before. They made plans for everything including hotel accommodation, food, transportation and other miscellaneous. On 26th of May, they embarked on the fun trip to visit the popular Osun-Osogbo shrine, the journey from Accra to Osun state lasted for 12 hours, they arrived late in the evening, on getting to Osogbo, the state capital, one thing got their attention as the school bus approached the community- darkness and quietness, it changed mood of the students. Further investigation revealed that 26th of May is when the eve of Osun-Osogbo is observed in the community, and special sacrifices are made to the goddess of Osun River, by the custodians of the shrine. Therefore, no house including hotels and restaurants are allowed to turn on lights throughout the night, and the custodians through the paramount traditional rulers have declared curfew through OSBC (Osun State Broadcasting Service).

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There was a serious panicking among the students, as nothing of this nature has been experienced by anyone before, the stress they went through during the journey also magnified this experience. The first impression was a bitter one, not cool. Finally, they were able to lodge in a different hotel, since booked hotel rooms appeared unsafe. To add insult to injury, the hotelier congratulated them for making it to his hotel, he added: “the goddess of the river often require human sacrifice which is most likely going to be a body of a stranger.” This statement sent waves through their spines, the experience was traumatic. Why did this happen to these innocent students?

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They had a bad experience because they had no cousin in Osogbo. Information provided by online review websites was really useless, the bloggers (paid or free) showed them only that part of the state that they want tourists to know. A cousin which is resident of Osogbo would have given more accurate information, s/he would have saved them from this misfortune. Okay, what if I tell you that there is a perfect solution that allows travelers to have access to best and reliable information for free. Alright, maybe I exaggerated, but Cool Cousin has made a paradigm shift, the company has developed an application (web-based) that is close to what can be called a perfect solution to problems in $2.3 trillion industry 1. This is not about building the castle in the air, Cool Cousin application has already been deployed to help users overcome travel challenges. Since 2016, more than 500,000 travelers have used the app in last 2 years. Simply put, Cool Cousin helps more than 685 travelers make a decision in every 24 hours 2. The world is welcome to the era of peer-to-peer and community-driven travel solutions.

How Cool Cousin Will Disrupt Travel Industry

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Source: coolcousin.com

Traditionally, travelers depend on travel agents and website reviews, for information about their destinations. In reality, the majority of reviews on the internet are being paid for and are written to influence the choice of prospects, without having their interest in mind. Travel and tourism are gold deposits, mined by few centralized companies.
According to co-founder of Paypal, Peter Thiel explained in his bestselling book, Zero to One, he opined that new company must create solutions that has never existed before or improve on existing ones, in other to remain in business. Cool Cousin is eliminating competition with this blue ocean strategy, everyone wants power, Cool Cousin is doing just that by giving it to us, no one will feel sold anymore.

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According to Italian economist cum sociologist, Wilfredo Pareto in his 80/20 rule, he said;

80% of the results come from 20% of the efforts.

Similarly, 80% of the money in travel and tourism industry is in the hands of 20% of the players. Cool Cousin will completely decentralize this industry by deploying blockchain technology. Therefore, giving power to travelers, and contributors which are refered to as cousins.

Cool Cousin Will Disrupt the Way We Travel

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Image of Sir Richard Burton

Sir Richard Burton said: “the gladdest moment in life, me thinks, is a departure into the unknown land.” Going to an unknown destination requires a certain level of positive anticipation and trust, but having a cousin told us about the strange land brings a level of confidence never experienced before in the industry. The most beautiful part is that Cool Cousin requires no special subscription and is devoid of annoying advertisements that could lead to indecision. No generation has traveled more than the millennials, we traveled for 6 days more than gen-z and 8 days more than baby boomers in each year 3. Eliminating middlemen will translate to increased savings, money that could have been spent on consulting travel agents can be spent on improving traveling experiences. The time that would have been spent on visiting 28 different websites over a period of 53 days in 76 online sessions can be spent on other valuable activities 4. More money will be available for traveling, hence more traveling time.

With Cool Cousin, Everyone Wins

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Adapted from whitepaper

John is an enthusiastic traveler and Anita’s work demand that she move from one city to another. What is more important to both is curation, convenience and trust. They want online booking and specialized knowledge about new destinations, as this is valuable to them. To avoid having a bad trip like the Ghanian students, the service of local cousins are required, they are informed about the cities, they have the first-hand experience in addition to superior digital tools that allow them to monetize knowledge that come to them naturally. This is a pretty cool way for cousins to earn passive income. On the other hand, John and Anita will have access to customized travel information at the most competitive price. Cousins make extra money, while John and Anita save money and time. It is win-win, isn't it? This is superbly cool to both the offeror and offeree.

Cool Cousin (CUZ) Tokens Will Encourage Engagement

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Adapted from whitepaper

Nikita Krushchev famously remarked, he said

call it what you will, incentives are what get people to work harder.

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Adapted from whitepaper

Incentive is the carrot of a successful company. There is no point debating on whether Cuz will incentivize travel industry by encouraging positive engagement in the industry or not. Cuz is an ERC20 token that will fuel all transactions in Cool Cousin community across the globe. Cousins will earn through the provision of valuable contents, approval of new cousins, dispute resolution and content validation 5. According to the whitepaper, the community will comprise of seven participants 6:

  • Cousins
  • Pro-cousins
  • Users (travelers)
  • Contributors
  • Editors
  • Board of representatives and
  • Business owners

Activities of these players are fueled using Cuz token, with adequate incentive and assurance that the community is self-governed to a large extent, more people will come onboard to render specialized services as it relates to travel. This will ultimately expand the pool of users and improve overall engagement. After all, cousins are rewarded for promoting Cool Cousin.

Will I Use Cool Cousin In My Area?

The answer is resounding YES! As a residence, nothing is wrong with exchanging knowledge for some Cuz. This is actually the best token on Ethereum blockchain. Millennials are already living in a time when almost every fun activities are rewarded on the internet, and Cool Cousin is taking this a little farther by rewarding users for completing simple tasks.
An interesting use case may be having in-app functionality that allows the third party to deploy an online survey, which can be filled by cousins in exchange for Cuz. The third party which may be a player in the travel industry will be required to buy enough Cuz tokens to execute this service on Cool Cousin platform.

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I am already a cousin. I encourage you to buy Cuz during ICO main sale, it is an investment that will deliver more value.

For more information about Cool Cousin, watch this video.

Here is what @autofreak said about Cool Cousin.

You can also watch the video on d.tube.
https://d.tube/v/autofreak/388vvhyf

For more information about Cool cousin, kindly click on the following links:

This contest was brought to steemit by @originalworks, click here to read more about it.

cc2018

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It is not ideal to embark on blind journey. Different information should be gathered before concluding to visit anywhere. That's where work of travel agent comes in.

The story was really touching

They'd made their research, but the information gathered on the internet was not adequate.

I hope you are going to buy this ICO.....

Yeah, you are right. That is why Cool Cousin will be important to travelers.

Though long and full of useful information, I must confess, I enjoyed every paragraph and sentence. From information in your article, this ICO is worth looking at.

Thank you @autofreak.

Thanks for checking by.

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