What do non-fungible tokens, natural habitats, & tourism experiences have in common?

A rel­at­ively new form of digit­al own­er­ship, non-fun­gible tokens (NFTs) have not only been attract­ing head­lines, but also the ima­gin­a­tions of those who would advance envir­on­ment­al causes that are close to their hearts. There are oppor­tun­it­ies for travel & tour­ism too, accord­ing to Lauren Uğur and Richard Powazyn­ski.

It’s a “Good Tour­ism” Insight. [You too can write a “GT” Insight.]

Since the late 1980s the pro­gres­sion from read-only Web 1.0, through the user-gen­er­ated con­tent and con­ver­sa­tions of Web 2.0, to the immers­ive online exper­i­ences made pos­sible by wire­less com­mu­nic­a­tions and the intel­li­gent semantics of Web 3.0 has been noth­ing short of astounding. 

The poten­tial of what this emotive embed­ded­ness can offer seems limitless. 

Any industry not will­ing to be left behind in the evol­u­tion of com­mu­nic­a­tion and inter­ac­tion needs to care­fully con­sider these emer­ging digit­al land­scapes if they are to take advant­age of the immense poten­tial that exists. 

Tour­ism is no exception. 

One sig­ni­fic­ant oppor­tun­ity in the tour­ism space is the use of dis­trib­uted ledger tech­no­logy (DLT) or ‘block­chain’, includ­ing non-fun­gible tokens (NFTs).

Non-fungibility = uniqueness

Fun­gib­il­ity in eco­nom­ics refers to a good or asset that is inter­change­able. A non-fun­gible token is there­fore not inter­change­able. It is unique. 

NFTs are block­chain-based digit­al assets that can be pur­chased with a digit­al wal­let using either a crypto­cur­rency or a tra­di­tion­al fiat currency.

NFTs can assume the form of an image, video, GIF, or audio file. Any­thing that can be digit­ised such as art­work, col­lect­ibles, tick­ets, or access passes can be rep­res­en­ted as an NFT. (NFTs can also rep­res­ent whole or frac­tion­al own­er­ship in a unique phys­ic­al item, such as an oil paint­ing, via what’s known as a smart contract.)

“NFTs rep­res­ent some­thing exceed­ingly excit­ing for new ways of ima­gin­ing and co-cre­at­ing tour­ism products and experiences …”

The key dif­fer­en­ti­at­ing point is that when the cus­tom­er pur­chases an NFT they are gain­ing own­er­ship of the token, as opposed to only a license to use the token. This own­er­ship can then be retained, sold, or traded to a new buyer.

This new form of digit­al own­er­ship opens doors for an innu­mer­able array of innov­at­ive approaches to exper­i­ence cre­ation, cus­tom­er inter­ac­tion, and access.

As the fol­low­ing examples show, non-fun­gible tokens can also be lever­aged for envir­on­ment­al (or oth­er) causes.

NFTs for conservation and the environment

Pos­sibly the first example of NFT use at the inter­sec­tion of tour­ism and con­ser­va­tion came out of Seychelles dur­ing the COVID pandemic. 

Nature Seychelles min­ted NFTs of the endangered mag­pie robin, sales of which raised funds that helped save Nature Seychelles from fin­an­cial ruin. 

Almost all of their con­ser­va­tion budgets relied on tour­ism that ground to a halt due to pan­dem­ic travel restrictions. 

Also see Nature Seychelles’ Nirmal Jivan Shah’s “GT” Insight
“From over­tour­ism to no tour­ism: What now for conservation?”

Since then, a num­ber of oth­er con­ser­va­tion-led pro­jects have sprung up. 

Nemus, for example, is a pro­ject that con­cen­trates its efforts on the con­ser­va­tion and pre­ser­va­tion of the planet’s nat­ur­al resources. 

Their ini­tial focus is on areas of the Amazon Rain­forest that are vul­ner­able to defor­est­a­tion. Nemus’ goal is to high­light “how respons­ible use of the rain­forest can cre­ate more value than des­troy­ing it” and has done so through lever­aging block­chain tech­no­logy to cre­ate an eco­sys­tem where any­one with a digit­al wal­let can par­ti­cip­ate in “doing good” and be rewar­ded for it. 

More spe­cific­ally, Nemus’ NFTs grant the hold­ers (known as “Guard­i­ans”) the right to col­lect rewards in their nat­ive token, mint addi­tion­al NFTs through game mech­an­ics, and par­ti­cip­ate in decisions con­cern­ing the eco­nom­ic and social activ­ity on the land pur­chased through the Nemus DAO (Decent­ral­ised Autonom­ous Organisation).

Anoth­er pro­ject, Wood­ies, which was co-foun­ded by co-author Richard Powazyn­ski, has taken an altern­at­ive, cre­at­ive approach to the poten­tial of NFTs. 

Through rich storytelling and the cre­ation of 10,000 Wood­ies char­ac­ters, each a unique NFT, the pro­ject has been able to foster a com­munity of like-minded indi­vidu­als with the core val­ues of fam­ily friend­li­ness and envir­on­ment­al con­scious­ness, and a pas­sion for spend­ing time in the great outdoors. 

Due to the suc­cess of the pro­ject, the Wood­ies com­munity achieved its goal of donat­ing enough funds to plant one mil­lion trees with its part­ner char­ity Trees for the Future.

This is com­munity char­ity at its finest, demon­strat­ing how act­iv­ism can be fun and reward­ing and how com­munity-powered NFTs rep­res­ent a whole new way to sup­port an individual’s pas­sions as well as the planet. 

Where the digital meets the physical and experiential

Ulti­mately, the approach of the three pro­jects men­tioned is to enable dir­ect impact in the phys­ic­al world through the use of NFTs and crypto­cur­ren­cies in the digit­al world. 

What becomes clear is that across eco­nom­ic (fun­drais­ing in Seychelles), envir­on­ment­al (Nemus’ approach to con­ser­va­tion), and social (Wood­ies’ com­munity build­ing) spheres of devel­op­ment, excit­ing new paths are being forged. 

Draw­ing out and expand­ing on the rela­tion­ship to any num­ber of eco­nom­ic, envir­on­ment­al, and social pur­suits requires only a spark of ima­gin­a­tion to real­ise what could be pos­sible for cre­at­ing new tour­ism exper­i­ences through a deep­er under­stand­ing of the net­work con­nec­tions, decision-mak­ing, com­munity-build­ing, and fin­an­cing oppor­tun­it­ies that NFT tech­no­logy offers.

Don’t miss oth­er “GT” posts tagged with
“Travel & tour­ism and des­tin­a­tion marketing”

From vir­tu­al tick­et­ing and key cards to digit­al souven­irs and even proof of attend­ance pro­to­cols (POAPs) the oppor­tun­it­ies seem alarm­ingly endless. 

In the opin­ion of these authors, NFTs rep­res­ent some­thing exceed­ingly excit­ing for new ways of ima­gin­ing and co-cre­at­ing tour­ism products and exper­i­ences, lever­aging the power of tech­no­logy, wheth­er to serve as a remind­er, to rep­res­ent, or to cre­ate a shared experience. 

What do you think? Share a short anec­dote or com­ment below. Or write a “GT” Insight. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion and per­spect­ive on travel & tour­ism because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

Fea­tured image (top of post): What do non-fun­gible tokens, nat­ur­al hab­it­ats, & tour­ism exper­i­ences have in com­mon? Image by Ifa­tahmad (CC0) via Pixabay.

About the authors 

Lauren Uğur is Pro­fess­or for Inter­na­tion­al Tour­ism Man­age­ment at the Heil­bronn Uni­ver­sity of Applied Sci­ences in Ger­many. Dr Uğur is an inde­pend­ent con­sult­ant and coach, spe­cial­ising in innov­a­tion in edu­ca­tion and busi­ness development.

Also see Lauren Uğur’s first “GT” Insight
“Mas­ters of com­plex­ity & change: What we need from the academy”

Richard Powazyn­ski is a mas­ters stu­dent in the Inter­na­tion­al Tour­ism Man­age­ment pro­gramme at the Heil­bronn Uni­ver­sity of Applied Sci­ences. His research top­ic focuses on the use cases of non-fun­gible tokens in the tour­ism industry. Richard is also a co-founder of the Wood­ies NFT pro­ject, and a con­sult­ant in the NFT space. He sup­ports NFT pro­jects look­ing to launch, or web 2.0 brands want­ing to trans­ition to web 3.0.