According to Cointelegraph, decentralized peer-to-peer vacation rental platform Dtravel announced on October 17 that it has joined the nonprofit Fetch.ai Foundation. Additionally, Dtravel has launched the first AI-powered travel agent for developers on the Fetch.ai marketplace.
Dtravel, which launched its decentralized home-sharing platform in 2021, aims to provide an alternative to centralized vacation rental platforms like Airbnb. Fetch.ai is a decentralized open marketplace platform where developers can create, deploy, modify, and integrate AI agents on the Fetch.ai blockchain.
The announcement stated that Dtravel’s intelligent vacation rental discovery agent is now available for developers in the Fetch.ai developer marketplace. This tool allows developers to integrate Dtravel’s AI-powered peer-to-peer networking agent into their projects via Fetch.ai. Peter Busche, chairman of the Fetch.ai Foundation, described the collaboration as a significant step toward a more efficient, intelligent, and user-centric travel ecosystem.
The travel industry is currently dominated by a few centralized businesses such as Expedia and Priceline, with targeted travel businesses like Airbnb also holding a significant market share. Decentralized travel offers an alternative to this intermediary-based model, enabling end-to-end solutions for travel and accommodations. This approach could potentially lower costs for both renters and property owners in the vacation rental and home-sharing markets. It also aligns with the broader decentralized finance movement, which has gained momentum in recent years.
Cynthia Huang, CEO of Dtravel, emphasized the potential benefits of AI for the travel industry. She noted that success requires both the development of technology and the creation of an ethical framework for collecting and using data to power these AI agents.