Blockchain Industries
Blockchain and The Tourism Industry in Hong Kong
The Tourism Industry in Hong Kong is one of the most vibrant industries in Hong Kong constituting 4.5% of Hong Kong’s GDP, employing over 250,000 people with an inbound money flow of over HK$ 260 billion.
The Tourism Industry, especially in Hong Kong relies heavily on the ecosystem the Tourism Industry created, sensitive information is passed between one another. For example, customer’s personal details are passed along the ecosystem from flight and hotel operators to travel agents. Not only are the intangibles being passed without much protection, personal belongings are also passed within the ecosystem. Blockchain can make the access and storage of important and sensitive information more reliably and securely.
Of course, financial transactions are also a vital part of the Tourism Industry as56 million visitors arrive in Hong Kong spending on average just under HK$ 6,000 every night. Blockchain technology has the ability to not only optimize, but also secure payments. This is especially true when the Tourism Industry deal with visitors coming from every corner of the earth. As a result, Blockchain has the potential to improve the level of security of transactions and trust among all parties.
Blockchain Applications in the Tourism Industry
1. Luggage Tracking
Blockchain technology can be applied for tracking luggage, especially with international travel. Due to the nature of international travel, luggage is handled by separate companies which do not necessarily have the best communications. That is how luggage get lost. The decentralised database of Blockchain Technology can greatly reduce miscommunications of tracking data between companies seamless, resulting in a more secure and reliable system shared by everyone in the Tourism Industry Ecosystem.
2. Identification Services
Smart Identification Services are here to replace holding up a dated photos and comparing that with the person standing in front of you. When Blockchain Technology is applied, travellers can reduce check-in times, time to queue for identity verifications at the airport and hotels. Identity information can be stored in the Blockchain and be accessed quickly when required by scanning user’s finger print or retina.
3. Secure Payments
One of the first Blockchain technology applications was payments. It is by far one of the most mature Blockchain technologies. For the Tourism Industry, The application of Blockchain technologies can range from allowing retailers to accept cryptocurrencies to acting as a shared ledger amongst all banks and financial institutions in the world, resulting in a more secure and simple payment experience by the travellers.
Blockchain and the Healthcare Industry
Blockchain technology has the ability to bring positive transformation to the Healthcare Industry, positioning the patients at the heart of the Healthcare ecosystem by optimizing the security, privacy, and access of personal health data. Blockchain technology can potentially bring forth a new model for health information exchanges (HIE) when the integration and education of the technology is done right.
In modern times, healthcare information systems are fragmented and distributed amongst nurses to pharmacies, medical laboratories to hospitals. Lifesaving and threatening information is being stored in a segregated manner making it very difficult for Healthcare professional outside of the proprietary systems to access. This proves to be problematic as doctors cannot get a complete overview of factual information of patients and lives are put at risk because of information inefficiencies.
A single global Blockchain can offer the Healthcare Industry transformations that help the industry perform more efficiently and securely. Patients with healthcare information on the Blockchain have the ability to securely store their health data on the Blockchain. Such information can be accessed in any point-of-care anywhere in the world.
Data security
Every year, millions of data breaches occur in respect to healthcare records. Through Blockchain technologies, patients and doctors can securely store and access the information with either a private key or a public identifier. Chances of hacking would also be reduced since all Blockchain applications have the innate ability to provide an immutable audit trail of information flow.
Blockchain Applications in the Healthcare Industry
Blockchain Applications in healthcare Industry can be grouped intofour areas:
• Electronic medical record (EMR) data Management
• Storage and Protection of Private Healthcare Data
• Point-of-care Genomics Management
• Electronics Health Records Data Management
Blockchain and the Commercial Real Estate Industry
The Commercial Real Estate (CRE) Industry is beginning to adopt the Blockchain technology. Smart contracts are beginning to play a bigger role in operations especially with property transactions such as sale, financing, leasing and transaction managements.
CRE contributes a significant portion of the world economic asset and transaction activity. The industry, especially in Hong Kong consists of many siloed constituencies, lowering the transaction efficiency and security. The Ethereum Blockchaincan bring various solutions to the CRE Industry, including:
• Real Estate Tokenization
• Underlying Services
• Automation and Optimization
• GlobalReal Estate Asset Distribution
• Wider investor pools access by ownership fractionalization
• Secure and Efficient Data Accessibility
BlockchainApplications in the Commercial Real Estate Industry
Smart Contracts and Escrow
Smart contracts are agreements concluded completely digitally with capabilities of contract enforcements without human involvement. Computer protocols perform automatic legitimacy and possibility checks on the transaction, shall any conditions and standards fail to be observed, the Blockchain will cancel the transaction. Such Smart Contract application enabled by the Blockchain technology were piloted by Deloitte in partnership with the City of Rotterdam.
Escrow services are often required in the process of property sales. Conventionally, escrow services are provided by trust companies, law firms and financial institutions, distributed ledgers can bring positive changes to the service offering. For instance, buyers can place theassets in a Blockchain escrow account. The assets will not be released to the sellers unless the buyers has obtained the right of ownership. All of this can be done without human input with the adoption of smart contracts.
Blockchainand Better Property Search
The Blockchain allows data to be distributed in a decentralized and peer-to-peer network, brokers will hence have more control over information and data, increasing trust in the ecosystem as listing information can be freely accessed by all stakeholders with the right credentials. Data can include details on the listing, market rates, valuation, ownership, history, etc..
