Caribbean Tourism Organization To Promote Use Of Cryptourrency In Travel Industry

By: David Pimentel

The Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) has teamed with Barbados-based cryptocurrency firm Bitt to implement crypto-based merchant applications in the travel industry and other related sectors.The CTO, with headquarters in Barbados and offices in New York and London, is the Caribbean’s tourism development agency.


It provides specialized support and technical assistance in sustainable tourism development, marketing, communications, advocacy, human resource development, event planning and execution, and research and information technology.

Founded in 2013, Bitt is a financial technology company that utilizes distributed ledger technology (DLT) to offer digital payment products and services, including digital asset issuance software. It provides a way to trade legal tender for digital assets and vice versa, as well as to trade one type of digital asset for another type of digital asset.

The company also offers a mobile wallet that empowers users to send and receive money globally from their mobile devices or PCs; and send payments for goods or services locally over the Internet or directly to friends and family.

The CTO and Bitt signed memorandum of understanding in order to help “foster broader economic participation in community-based tourism and related sectors” through the use of cryptocurrencies. The parties intend to implement “efficient and cost effective” digital payment products and services in the region’s most important industry. 

Bitt will facilitate “the implementation of more efficient payment processes for tourism products and services.”“The Caribbean aims to fully examine the advantages offered by new financial technology,” said CTO secretary general Hugh Riley. “In particular, blockchain financial services have the potential to advance the objectives of specific programs and activities within the tourism sector.

The CTO has a responsibility on behalf of our members to fully explore those possibilities.”“Tourism is the largest single contributor to the Caribbean economy,” said Bitt CEO Rawdon Adams. “It is absolutely critical to every single Caribbean nation’s well-being and development. We see this as a very natural and necessary association. We know how transformational our technology can be.

”Last month, Bitt partnered with the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB), the monetary authority for a group of eight island economies in the region, to conduct a blockchain pilot in the ECCB member countries.

The plan was to develop, deploy, and test technology which focuses on know your customer, anti-money laundering, and combating the financing of terrorism (KYC/AML/CFT) data management, compliance, and transaction monitoring system.
http://blocktribune.com/caribbean-tourism-organization-to-promote-use-of-cryptourrency-in-travel-ind...