COOL COUSIN: TRAVELING THROUGH PEOPLE

in #coolcousin6 years ago

Did you know 

  • That Travel & Tourism accounts for 10% of the world’s GDP ?
  • That it also accounts for 1 in every 10 jobs ?
  • That there are around 1.24 billion international tourist arrivals worldwide ?
  • That Travel and Tourism generates $2.3 trillion in direct revenue every year ?
  • That the industry is expected to contribute about $3.5 trillion to world GDP by 2027 ?

If you didn't already know any of these, then perhaps you just realized how huge the travel and tourism industry is. Fortunately, it's only getting better as new, innovative and more convenient platforms are availing themselves to provide an ultimately fantastic travel experiences for travelers across the globe. It is often said that the world is like a book. At any point in time, you can only read one page, one paragraph even. Staying in one place without traveling is like reading the same page over and over again. You can imagine how narrow your perception of the world would be. From where I come, there is this local proverb that ' a traveling child is older than his father'. Simply put, the more you travel, the more you know. It is for this reason that millions of people tour the world every year to meet new people and to see new places. 

The Problem

Unfortunately, traveling to a place blind (a place you know nothing about) can be hectic, very stressful and sometimes even risky. You would be surprised how many tourists get scammed, robbed or even kidnapped every blessed year. Over the past few years, many people have resorted to the internet for information about the places they intend to visit. Now more than ever, the internet puts people who rely solely on it as their source of information in very precarious positions. There's so much fake and unreliable news on the web. The information we are exposed to is highly manipulated and tailored to give us a false sense of satisfaction and security. The travel and tourism market place is huge, lucrative and for that matter, competitive. There are thousands of small to medium sized traveling agencies who are genuine and provide incredible services but are simply financially incapable of competing in the online market place. Bigger companies, irrespective of whether their services are good or not, are able to afford search engine optimization and better advertisement. Travelers often realize too late, that they never got the travel experiences they had paid for.   

The Solution

The solution is here, in fact, it has been since 2016. It is called Cool Cousin. It is a decentralized, tokenized and blockchain based ecosystem that seeks to guarantee the direct and secure exchange of knowledge and services between travelers and locals around the world using smart contracts, with the ultimate goal of propagating fantastic travel experiences. These locals, who are simply termed cousins, are well-informed about the traveler's destination and usually share similar interests with their tourist. How lovely huh ? Since the advent of the beta version of Cool Cousin in July, 2016, over 500,000 travelers have used and benefited from this amazing platform via the Cool Cousin free app (web and iOS). With the sky rocketing growth of both users and cousins, Cool Cousin is ready to take the travel and tourism industry into the future by integrating this already amazing platform with decentralized blockchain technology. This new and improved platform will be powered by a cryptocurrency called CUZ.

The CUZ Token. 

As I said, Cool Cousin intends to power their ecosystem with a utility token known as CUZ. This token shall be used to procure in-app services such as tipping cousins for more/specific information or services. It is created for the exchange of travel services and unique local information. Soon, as third party services join the platform, the utility of CUZ is expected to expand as one may be able to use them for hotel and restaurant services at discounted rates. In the near future, a small pool of CUZ will be liquefied and units of this currency will trade on crypto-exchange platforms. 

How Does Cool Cousin Work?

It's quite simple actually, in about 6 simple steps, you can gather all the relevant information pertaining to your travel destination within a short period of time.

  • Choose a destination and get a local’s insider guidance.
  • Browse their community of locals who we call Cousins.
  • Filter by bio, age, photos, tags and preferences, and connect with Cousins who suit your taste.
  • Select a Cousin and get instant access to their city guide, available online and offline as a map or list.
  • Get your Cousin’s personal recommendation for the spots they love and save places from all Cousins to curate your own list.
  • For personalized guidance that is customized to your needs, message your Cousin and get advice straight from a local in the know, within a few hours.

The Cool Cousin Community

The Cool Cousin community encompasses several participants including Contributors, Editors, Board of Representatives, Business owners and many more. But for the purpose of this article, I shall focus on the two main group of participants who are at the heart of this ecosystem:

Cousins/Pro-cousins

The best and most reliable information a traveler can get about their destination is probably from some one who already lives there, a local, an indigen, a native, someone who knows the place inside out. Most people will prefer to call an old friend, family or even use a traveling agent. Unfortunately, you can only have as many friends who live across the globe. This is where Cool Cousin Comes in, it is the closest you can get to having a friend in every city of the world. These locals aka cousins create and upload relevant profile information about themselves on the Cool Cousin platform. They also indicate their favorite spots in the city as well as their interest. Users can search through these profiles and find Cousins who share their particular interests. These users can then directly message their cousins for further information and for answers to questions they might have. Cousins can earn utility tokens by answering user questions or by updating their profiles with useful information.

Users

Users are the pivot around which the Cool Cousin ecosystem revolves. These are travelers and tourists who are seeking interesting and comfortable places to visit at their destinations. Cousins can assist users make decisions with regard to destinations, hotels, restaurants, tourist attractions, among others. Users can become contributors who earn CUZ tokens for actions that add value to the platform, from thanking their Cousins and signing in to a spot, to contributing to the growth of the community by taking photographs for spots, flagging inaccuracies, reviewing recommendations and promoting Cool Cousin on other platforms.

Now Consider This Use Case

John and Mary are two lovely American couple who have been married for the past five years. They started a small business in New York City about four years ago and have made significant progress since then. Their 5th wedding anniversary will be in a week's time. As a child, Mary has always wanted to visit Paris and still dreams of it till this day. John knows this and plans to surprise her with a get away trip to Paris for their anniversary. Unfortunately, John does not know anyone in Paris and attempts to find some useful information about the city online has proved futile. 

Meanwhile, somewhere in the city of Paris, Nicholas (a local who knows the city inside out) hears of Cool Cousin and decides to create a profile as a cousin. While searching for other alternatives to acquire guidance about his travels, John comes across the Cool Cousin ecosystem. He quickly combs through the various Cousin profiles and finds that he and his wife seem to share a lot of similarities with Nicholas. John then contacts him (via direct massaging) for more information. He tips Nicholas with some CUZ tokens in exchange for more specific and personal services. He can then concentrate the time and energy he would otherwise have spent on the internet to planning an amazing surprise for his wife.      

Conclusion

I will conclude by simply stating that Cool Cousin is the future of the multi-trillion dollar travel and tourism industry. It allows users to achieve their dreams of a fantastic and fascinating travel experience while enabling the locals to earn by sharing their services and knowledge of their cities. In the end, everyone goes home happy. What else could we have asked for?

MEET THE TEAM

For a quick introduction, kindly checkout the video below:  

You may also like:  

This Article was submitted to @OriginalWorks Sponsered Writing Contest.

Feel free to Participate Here.

cc2018            


    

 

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There are many tourism apps in the play store
Though this app looking really cool & interesting

This comment has received a 0.28 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @pritam20.

Yeah, it is.

Hi

I love your post. Easy to read and so informative.
Obviously upvoted :)

Cool cousin is indeed another great project, that can disturb tourism industry.

I've one off-topic question. You wrote in the past about Effect.ai if im not mistaken. I noticed that they are listed only on switcheo.network exchange.

Do you know anything about this exchange? And personally would you invest in this crypto at current stage?

Cheers
Piotr

To be honest, I don't have information on the switcheo.network exchange. I will suggest you visit their official website for more information. Personally, I believe they have some good prospects, but you know, you can never be too sure about this things.

Appreciate your reply.

Wow.
Nice contribution.
I like traveling.

Happy Steeming.

Thanks and same to you.

This post has received a 2.64 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @osmansnr.

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