Bitcoin Forum

Are there any Bitcoin tourists out there? People have long since been talking about the benefits of Bitcoin for tourism, but somebody in British Columbia seems to have made some actual headway. The idea was, we want people from other countries to be able to visit us without having to interact with overpriced currency exchanges or banking institutions. The plan is to start by hitting resorts, where tourists are plentiful per capita, and the expenses more justified.

So far, the guy in Whistler is doing this by having set up a company called ClickJett, which lets you book travel and accommodations (among other things) using Bitcoin. Once you get there, he has another company called Logicoins that operates an ATM specialized for crypto selling, so that you can convert to local currency for use at places not accepting crypto, yet. We did just convince their first restaurant, though, and are having a celebratory event: https://www.facebook.com/events/233487353510614/

anything people "do" in bitcoin, they could already do using fiat instead of bitcoin. both clickjett and logicoins make flight and lodging more expensive than the same service from the same company in fiat - the bitcoin factor being 50% novelty, 50% crowd marketing?

Fiat companies can only do this at a cheaper rate if fiat is dominant. The trend has to start somewhere. We convinced businesses to adopt Bitcoin and spread awareness in the process of doing this; to the extent that you could do this more cheaply via GroupOn etc, you may consider it a tax paid by bored early adopters and dedicated enthusiasts. If you have enough bitcoins, you will benefit from projects like this via investment growth--at least in the long run.

Bitcoin tourism to me is, if people travel to countries and/or states where Bitcoin is legal and buy some from a local trader

E.g. Florida residents have to travel out of state because their shitty laws don't allow this.  >:(

You can do that in BC, too! We have the Bitcoiniacs, QuadrigaCX, a Decentral hangout, and dozens of Bitcoin businesses for you to explore, including some minor historical sites like the first Indian restaurant in the world to accept Bitcoin.

We haven't yet convinced a hotel or an airline, though, so for now you'll need third-party services if you want to conduct your whole tour on crypto.

I Love this idea.
Keep up the good work. :)

Protip: resort municipalities are likely to reject permit applications related to crypto in various cases. Our friend Simon uses one company to handle the ATM and exchanging, and the other company to interact with the municipality and book accommodations. They actually gave him trouble, at first. It's possible that this arrangement will fall apart at some point in the future, but they don't read forums, so we're good for now. We didn't tell the Waves higher-ups that one of their coffee shops was taking Bitcoin until they saw it on the news, and that turned out okay. :P

This is a year old.
Is the situation now in Greece ripe for creating the first crypto tourism city/island?
Just a thought
 

I don't think Greece will abandon the euro so soon... but places like Zimbabwe and Uzbekistan, where tourists get piles of worthless notes for their dollars, could certainly benefit from adopting bitcoin in their tourism sector.

but the main issue is that the adoption of bitcoin is still very low, most tourists don't even know what a bitcoin is. So the process of exchanging dollars (or whatever major currency) to bitcoin just to use during one trip wouldn't be that much more appealing than changing it to worthless local currency which they'll finish spending before they leave, for now at least.

I wonder how well the OP did at convincing businesses to use bitcoins?  I certainly see the advantage to anyone traveling to a foreign nation.  In fact I think crypots are best when used for international commerce.  The banks must be very afraid :)

That's why there is a Bitcoin Island, where a tourist can spend their Bitcoin on their vacation time.  8)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=567458.340

i think the idea for using bitcoin in Tourism is a great one. because then i don't have to run around and go through the process of exchanging my fiat to the other fiat and pay some extra money for the process too.

but i would like to be able to spend bitcoin myself and not go through a third party. what ClickJett is doing is no different that exchanging my money to fiat in my own country. and this will only happen if everyone starts accepting bitcoin.

Most of the people i know that have had a vacation using bitcoin is all set and done with planing, now in days you could book for a flight, hotel and car rental with bitcoin, the rest is pretty much to find a few stores and restaurants that take bitcoin or a local bitcoin trader to buy your bitcoin and give you local currency.

We did fairly well, thanks for asking. :) Vancouver now has multiple hotels that accept Bitcoin, a farm where you can get food, and plenty more bars, restaurants, and cafes.

The ClickJett project appears to be in hiatus with no real progress, but if you use any other service out there that lets you book flights with Bitcoin, you'll find we now have more Bitcoin ATMs per capita than any other city in the world. If you come by the Decentral Vancouver hangout spot, someone will give you the lowdown and introduce you to the community.

I think as time goes on there will be places around the world that slowly grow into bitcoin centres or are known as places where many shops or services accept bitcoin and thus bitcoiners will flock to them for the novelty. It's already happening on a small scale with 'hubs' popping up in places like Amsterdam and some other places I can't recall but they don't seem to be that big currently, though as I said they will likely grow over time. I must admit, I would probably go to a place if it was know for being a centre for bitcoin and one day hope to travel to as many places I can and use my bitcoins in the process.

it look like a pretty good idea, but if tourists can find a trusted service that they can use. and also I would definitely use this service if it becomes popular.

To the OP, Bitcoin tourism isn't about people selling travel services via bitcoin. Bitcoin tourism is about people going on vacation, being tourists to locations that are historic for Bitcoin or doing some work (while on vacation) to advance the Bitcoin project.

i don't quite understand this. what is the difference between the two parts of what you said? i mean what is the benefit of the second one

if you want to use their local fiat isn't it easier to but with cash at your homeland and then travel there and not pay fees to their ATM which you might not find everywhere?

I guess there is 2 sides to what bitcoin tourism is categorize now days, but you know be right a bitcoin tour of places that are part of the bitcoin movement, like attending a meet up with key promoters or meeting some of the main bitcoin supporters.

but lets say that you are not american.. or canadian..
lets say that you're a tourist with a euro bank account , many standard services in america/canada do not accept a euro debit card (yea it happens) even restaurants and other places in canada dont like euro debit cards. and as for the tourist, he has to either withdraw cash from his euro account and convert it to dollars, risking pickpocketing when carrying around hundreds of dollars on his persons.. or get a dollar based credit card.

all of which have expensive conversion charges and also application forms and waiting days to receive the card.

. also imagine you want to move to canada, imagine the hassle of having to change bank accounts, inform customs of carrying over $10k on you, and then once you become a resident of canada. you then have to go through months of making business plans and meeting bank managers purely to get a business account.. and then once you have a business account you then have to apply for a payment gateway service to accept card payments. along with the risks of fraudsters, and monthly charges just to use a card processing machine

all of which you dont need to do when you use bitcoin.
people forget how much bureaucracy is involved with setting up fiat accounts or moving funds. with bitcoin all you need is a smartphone and a QR code, set up takes minutes, not months

You can do that in our city; we have the world's first Bitcoin ATM, first Indian restaurant to accept Bitcoin, etc. But how will you get here? You're going to use fiat? Don't make Satoshi cry  :'(


Then you have to talk to a traditional currency exchange, and those guys are jerks. If other cities follow our lead and put Bitcoin ATMs everywhere, then the crypto alternative becomes convenient. What we really need, though is to get one at the airport--they haven't let us do that, yet, but if they did, you could exchange upon landing and taking off, leaving no local fiat behind to be wasted.