1. Introduction
Blockchain technology is defined as an accounting register that has the characteristic of being distributed in a decentralised way using a consensus protocol and a data structure with an architecture resistant to modifications [
1]. Since its appearance in 2008 [
2], this technology, based on the generation of encrypted blocks of information, has the particularity of being able to store and transmit stored data records containing information about the sender of the transaction, the receiver, the date and time of the transaction, the type of asset transferred and the amount of the same [
3]. This type of technology can transfer a type of cryptocurrency to make payments between different countries without having to go through an intermediary, execute a contract between third parties without the need for an intermediary or execute a smart contract [
3,
4] associated with the automatic resolution of a tourist service reservation contract.
1.1. Blockchain Technology Overview
The growth in the market capitalisation value of cryptocurrencies, which stood at
$1.67 T in January 2022 [
5], indicates the level of investment expectations this blockchain technology is generating globally. It is estimated that by 2030, this technology’s investments could contribute to a global economic growth of US
$1.76 trillion [
6]. Furthermore, this technology has already demonstrated its usefulness in reducing financial costs in different industries [
7] or securing and providing transparency to transactions [
3]. This paper aims to deepen the analysis of the contribution to the financing of tourism projects and their management by incorporating different benefits and utilities in the value chain [
8] of tourism companies and business models.
1.2. Crypto Economy and Practical Application of Blockchain Technology
Since the publication in 2008 of the document where Bitcoin [
2] was discussed, the development of blockchain technology has evolved to the development of the so-called “crypto economy” [
9], which is identified with the transaction system that uses cryptographic hashes as computational proof mechanisms within a network, to transfer and confirm the transmission of assets such as electronic money or smart contracts. In a crypto economy, cryptocurrency tokens serve as a medium of exchange, store of value and unit of account, allowing transactions to occur directly between parties without intermediaries such as banks [
10]. Furthermore, the decentralised nature of blockchain technology also allows for the creation of decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) that can operate autonomously based on a set of rules encoded in smart contracts [
11]. However, cryptoeconomics is a relatively new and evolving field, and there are still many challenges and uncertainties, including issues related to regulation, security and volatility [
1].
Blockchain technology seeks to replace the trust placed in a third party, traditionally a financial institution, with a series of tools that make these organisations dispensable. It replaces the trust of human actions with algorithms based on decentralised blockchain technology and assigns trust characteristics to the economic system it supports [
1]. This technology is valuable in generating business and social value in the business world [
12], bringing security, transparency and privacy management to economic transactions and other parts of the business value chain [
13].
From a practical point of view, the applications developed are related to so-called smart contracts [
14], which can automatically execute a set of instructions previously programmed through a computerised protocol [
15]. Thus, smart contracts are used to automate the management of investments and the distribution of profits among investors, to ensure that the conditions established in the insurance contract are met, to automate the process of granting and monitoring credit or to automate the process of making payments and financial transfers, which helps to reduce costs and speed up the process of the contract or investment.
Its application in the tourism sector still needs to be more widespread. The leading publications focus on the potential of blockchain technology to improve the efficiency and sustainability of the operations of different tourism services and as a tool to enhance the quality of the service provided to the tourist customer [
16]. In this way, smart contracts automate the booking process of accommodation and tourism services and manage payments automatically. They are also used to automate the process of purchasing and using travel insurance, ensuring that the conditions set out in the contract are met and facilitating the claims process in case of cancellation or other eventualities. Real applications already exist that are used to automate accumulating and redeeming points in tourism loyalty and reward programmes, thereby reducing management costs for tourism service providers [
17].
1.3. Uses of Bibliometrics in Other Research Fields
Bibliometric analysis is a technique used to assess the impact of scientific and technological research, which includes different tools and software for its implementation [
18]. Technological development has led to specialised software that incorporates pre-designed workflows and is available to the scientific community and the general public [
19]. This work proposes using tools that comply with the necessary bibliometric workflow and are developed under the open-source modality, which means that it is not required to acquire any commercial licence for their use.
Bibliometrics is a technique that has been widely used in all academic fields to assess the impact of scientific and technological research. This technique makes it possible to determine, among other parameters, the most cited research papers, the most cited authors or the contributions by country [
20]. The use of bibliometrics provides a complete picture of the performance of a given research topic, which helps explore the evolution of a particular academic research field. In this work, an application called Bibliometix has been used to make thematic maps and explore the evolution of a specific area of research. The VOSviewer software [
21] has also been used to carry out an analysis of bibliometric maps by text mining, which allows related terms with the capacity to form a specific cluster or theme to be created. This technique allows clusters of countries, institutions, keywords or the overall performance of a citation structure to be obtained and helps researchers to explore a particular field of research in-depth, identifying research narratives with a certain proximity based on the keywords, authors or publications analysed [
22].
1.4. Blockchain Technology and Financing Opportunities
Due to the scarcity of academic literature in the field of study, the document helps to build a theoretical framework that will contribute to broadening the range of research in the area. It also aids in developing a conceptual framework based on the literature review and identifying key concepts, providing a solid basis for future research. It could also be used as future support for the elaboration of case studies on specific financing models based on the challenges and limitations of blockchain technology for financing tourism projects, improving financial transparency and efficiency of the tourism supply chain.
This paper aims to conduct a systematic review of the academic literature associated with blockchain technology applied to the financing of the tourism sector from a dual perspective. First, the opportunities for financing business projects related to the tourism sector. Second, the opportunities to provide new management tools for tourism companies along the value chain from a financial perspective. Although blockchain technology is generating a large amount of academic literature in recent years [
23], work on its contribution to the financial sphere, more specifically, its contribution to the financing and management of tourism projects, has yet to begin to be investigated. Still, research interest is expected to awaken in the coming years.
The contributions of this document are intended to be channelled through two research questions. RQ1: To what extent can blockchain technology help finance tourism projects and business models? RQ2: Can blockchain technology contribute to the improvement in the financial management of tourism companies?
Answering these research questions pretends to reveal possible applications of blockchain technology in the financing and management of tourism projects, which historically have been financed with various innovative financial tools and structures to varying degrees [
24]. Especially in recent years, platforms incorporating crowdfunding and other innovative forms of financing have emerged [
24,
25]. This paper is structured as follows. First, a systematic review of the existing literature on blockchain technology and its contribution to the financing and management of tourism projects is conducted. An analysis is also carried out with two types of bibliometric techniques used. Finally, the results are presented, followed by a discussion and conclusions.
Once you highlight the current and future possibilities of blockchain technology in the financing of the tourism sector, a systematic review methodology is applied to a topic such as blockchain technology, which alone has generated more than 24,000 scientific publications [
26] but focused on a sector such as the tourism sector, which, in terms of gross domestic product and employment generation, has a significant impact worldwide [
27]. Considering also that the tourism sector is traditionally made up of participants who are very permeable to incorporating new information and communication technologies [
28].
2. Materials and Methods
The scientific database Web of Science (WoS) has been selected as the primary source of resources, as it is composed of the most extensive collection of the world’s most prestigious research journals, where researchers from more than 140 countries have published their contributions in the last 15 years [
29]. Documents written in English, mainly articles, have been analysed, as it is considered the most legitimate academic source [
30], published until the end of December 2022. Using a Boolean approach, the keywords chosen were “blockchain tourism financial” and “blockchain tourism finance”, using the fields title, abstract and key words. Due to the limited academic literature on the analysed topic, the following categories of documents have been used: article, article early access, proceedings paper and review. Relevant is the case of the proceedings paper that can provide relevant information given the limited existing academic literature in the field of study [
31].
Applying the Prisma Statement data methodology [
32], data were collected from the WoS source up to 26 December 2022. The set of publications collected as of 26 December 2022 reflected 18 documents. After a detailed analysis, one duplicate document was detected, and no further documents needed to be excluded from the analysis. A total of 17 documents were part of the analysis.
Figure 1 summarises the workflow used in this study, a process found in different studies using scientific mapping [
18].
The first part of the analysis was carried out using the Biblioshiny software [
18], which is helpful for descriptive bibliometric analysis, also based on the coding of variables used in previous work [
33]. For the second part of the analysis, the VOSviewer tool [
34] was used to analyse and visualise networks based on co-authorship, co-citation criteria and keywords, among other types of analysis. Finally, in the third part of the analysis, a descriptive study and analysis of the 17 documents included were conducted, motivating the conclusions.
4. Discussion
Smart contracts simplify the financial transaction process and bring transparency to regulation [
46,
47], improving data security and reducing the risks associated with traditional financial transactions [
48]. Implementing this technology eliminates many of the existing financial costs [
49], such as those related to international transactions, and gives tourism businesses the ability to remain competitive [
32,
39] and be more efficient [
50]. Blockchain technology enables the deployment of digital payment networks in business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions [
51] that have a clear impact on improving the personalisation of tourist-oriented services [
52]. These utilities have already started to be deployed by large tourism organisations, such as tour operators [
53], airlines [
54] or the logistics sector [
55]. However, many other applications and developments will be deployed in the future [
56], summarised in
Figure 8.
Blockchain technology is essential in enabling greater transparency in supply chain and resource management; for example, by recording the provenance and traceability of food and beverage products [
57]. It also ensures compliance with ethical and environmental business standards that contribute to creating new, more sustainable business models [
58] related to the circular economy. Furthermore, combining blockchain technology with other technologies is a field to be fully explored. For example, blockchain technology, combined with wireless sensor network (WSN) technology, can be of great use in tourism, especially regarding the reliability and automation of discrete events [
59]. Discrete event-based simulation is a modelling and simulation technique that allows for studying the behaviour of a system over time. In this type of simulation, time is divided into discrete moments, and the events occurring in the system at each moment are processed sequentially. An example of this combination could be developing a method for real-time monitoring and controlling weather conditions in a tourist region by combining Internet of Things technology [
60]. Artificial intelligence can also contribute, together with blockchain technology, to fostering sustainable tourism, by using such technology to implement measures that help reduce the adverse effect of tourism activity on natural and cultural resources [
61]. Finally, there are also proposals to combine augmented reality and virtual reality with blockchain technology to help improve the perception of products and services in various sectors [
62]. In the case of the tourism sector, the combination of technologies can help create immersive experiences.
Responding to the first research question, RQ1: To what extent can blockchain technology help finance tourism projects and business models?, the results reveal successful cases of project financing in the tourism industry through so-called ICOs, considered alternative financing tools based on the crowdfunding technique. These tools consist of issuing and selling cryptocurrencies used as a form of project financing, providing a fast and efficient source of funding for innovative projects in the tourism sector.
Regarding RQ2: Can blockchain technology contribute to the improvement of the financial management of tourism companies?, experiments are already being carried out that combine blockchain technology and other technologies, such as big data, to obtain statistical information systems in the tourism and cultural industry that make it possible to obtain relevant information on the contribution of these activities to the added value of a given economy, serving as a basis for decision-making by companies and public authorities. Technology also makes it possible to simplify financial transactions, providing greater transparency and reducing financial costs, allowing for improvements in terms of efficiency and competitiveness of the companies involved.
5. Conclusions
This paper demonstrates the potential of blockchain technology in financing entrepreneurial tourism projects and improving the financial management of the tourism industry. The theoretical framework constructed in this paper provides a basis for understanding how blockchain technology can improve efficiency and transparency in the financing of tourism projects and the financial management of tourism enterprises.
The theoretical implications of this study focus on the application and potential of blockchain technology in the financing and financial management of tourism enterprises. In addition, the possible effects of the adoption of this technology on the competitiveness and profitability of tourism companies are discussed. Finally, on a practical level, this paper provides valuable information for decision-makers in the tourism industry, regulators and investors, showing how blockchain technology can be used as an alternative and efficient financing tool in the tourism industry and how it can improve the financial management of tourism companies.
This study’s limitations are based on the need for empirical data on the implementation and impact of blockchain technology in the tourism industry. Therefore, more research is needed to investigate the practical application of blockchain technology in the tourism industry, its potential impact on tourism businesses and its implications for the regulatory framework, focusing on the development of frameworks and guidelines for safe and effective use in tourism businesses.