Topic: A hotel booking site that accepts bitcoin (Read 5921 times)

Hi, my name is Kim Koldtoft, and I work as CTO for a Danish start-up.

We have built a hotel booking website (and later we will add plane tickets and car rentals).
We are backed by strong investors and have great ambitions.  We have all the same hotels as our competitors, at the same prices.

Business model
Our business model is, that we don't spend money on traditional advertisement and marketing, but instead we donate half of our commission to charity, every time a hotel booking is placed. We then use our NGO partnerships to help spread awareness of our movement. Our NGO partners are motivated to help spread awareness, by telling their millions of followers about us, as they will be receiving the donations when they book their hotels.

Our hotel booking website
https://www.goodwings.com/en-us



A quick introduction video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBL1KWtmOkY

How Bitcoin fits in
I am a big advocate for bitcoin, and have been using bitcoin myself, for a little over 3 years. I would love to make Goodwings the first "main-stream" hotel booking engine, that accepts bitcoin. I have done some research, and been unable to find any large scale hotel booking website that accepts crypto currency. Expedia has a Bitcoin Terms & Conditions page, but then when placing a booking, I can't pay with bitcoin.

We are preparing to add various payment methods such as PayPal, Apple Wallet, Android Pay, Google wallet etc. I would love to add Bitcoin to that list, but as I am sure you can imagine, I expect my colleagues to have the typical (and very annoying) "Is bitcoin not illegal and used for drugs and guns?"

I can explain to my colleagues how that it's not true, but they only have to point out that I can't explain it to all our our potential customers, and thus we should not add bitcoin, as it may be perceived poorly.

However, if I could counter that, with a promise (however vague) of a new potential client-base, as there might be lots of good bitcoin people, that would love to help make a positive change in the world, at no extra cost.


If anyone has any input on how accepting bitcoin could help attract additional business, as well as any other input, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much,

- Kim Koldtoft

Sorry, but I don't mix business with charitable activities. I usually spend 100 nights a year in hotels, paying for about half of it (companies I'm working with are paying the other half), and the most important thing is price. The hotel's price (service commission included) shall be as low as possible. I suppose you charge high commissions to give away one half, that's enough to make me want to look elsewhere.

However, if I could counter that, with a promise (however vague) of a new potential client-base, as there might be lots of good bitcoin people, that would love to help make a positive change in the world, at no extra cost.

Well, Bitcoin really isn't illegal.. It's a form of money and for most people who don't really give much of a crap to analyse it that way:
a way to process payments.. It should even be more beneficial to accept more ways, especially since you could easily do that and eliminate the middle man
and get more money in the process.

Good luck, I'm following your developments!

Actually, booking an hotel with BTC is a great idea, but most travelers are looking for deals, so giving money to a charity isn't in the plan. You have to compete on price.

Who is your api provider?

Sorry, but I don't mix business with charitable activities. I usually spend 100 nights a year in hotels, paying for about half of it (companies I'm working with are paying the other half), and the most important thing is price. The hotel's price (service commission included) shall be as low as possible. I suppose you charge high commissions to give away one half, that's enough to make me want to look elsewhere.