GOeureka; A Rewarding Hotel Booking Experience

The online travel sector is well-overdue a revolution. With Online Travel Agents (OTAs) charging commission fees as high as 15–30%, pushing up costs for hoteliers and travellers alike, many are now searching for an alternative.

GOeureka is committed to delivering their solution, a commission-free online booking platform that promises affordable, unbiased, and transparent travel for all.

With a strong core team already in place, GOeureka have also assembled a highly skilled and experienced advisory team to help guide and direct them in their mission.

About GOeureka

GOeureka is a travel tech company utilising blockchain technology to build a hotel booking platform. Our mission is to decentralise the hotel booking sector and deliver greater transparency by allowing hotels to directly connect with their customers. As a technology partner to hotels, GO aims to provide a dynamic digital experience to users and eradicate the high commission structures imposed by online travel agents. By reducing the financial commitments of hotels to third-party booking platforms, GO’s vision is to enable hotels to focus more resources on providing better intrinsic value and services to travellers around the globe.

Platform Overview

GOeureka aims to develop an easy to use, reliable Facility and Services booking system with persistent indisputable records. As with all new systems, much of what is proposed will evolve over time as requirements change. The web platform will be developed with a backend built on the Python Django framework while individual components will be built using a mix of programming languages (HTML, CSS, Javascript, Golang, etc.) and the mobile application built on the Ionic framework. The database will be a PostgreSQL database that runs on a cloud server (Amazon Web Service) with certain data validated and stored on the Ethereum blockchain. Smart contracts will be ERC20 compliant (though newer standards may be applied after the time of writing) and customized using Solidity.

ERC20 smart contracts will be utilized for the security and immutability of data throughout the platform. To increase performance and keep transaction fees to a minimum, individual transactions and bookings will be kept outside of the blockchain. The settlement of all transactions will occur off-chain and fulfilled transactions will be aggregated each day and sent through the smart contract to be validated and stored on the blockchain.

Loyalty Programmes

Hotel loyalty programmes will be integrated into the GOeureka platform, where travellers may earn loyalty points from the hotels they have booked. Necessary APIs will be provided for hotels to link their loyalty database with GOeureka. This will help facilitate the interoperable loyalty points detailed in GOeureka’s official whitepaper. GOeureka will send and retrieve data from the hotel’s database to provide real-time updates for users to track their points and for hotels to track points that users have redeemed with GOeureka. Research shows that 70% of customers do not sign up for a loyalty programme due to inconvenience and time costs associated with registering for a programme . With GOeureka, 1 registration for a loyalty programme is processed and verified in the backend. Customers will only be required to fill up an online registration form or, if they are already registered loyalty members, they only need to provide their pre-registered details (e.g. member ID) and the platform will link and display their loyalty details.

The Proxy Wallet

One key issue typically faced when designing a blockchain system for mass adoption is the handling of user wallets. While a hardware wallet like a Ledger Nano or a plug in like Metamask can expect users to use a recovery phrase, general users are unlikely to be happy with such a solution. We intend to use what is called a proxy wallet for all Ether transactions:

1. Users will undergo a proof of identity when signing up for GOeureka

2. Cryptographic Key Pairs are created on user devices and never leave their devices

3. A corresponding smart contract called a “proxy wallet” will be created on the blockchain

4. The user channels all transactions via the proxy wallet which is tied to the user’s identity

5. The proxy wallet allows the user to interact with all parts of the GOeureka system

6. On registration of a lost phone, GOeureka can, via a rigorous process, establish the identity of the account and assign that person’s new address to be the new controller of the proxy wallet.

The proxy wallet is already in use in several organisations.

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