Decentralized peer-to-peer vacation rental platform Dtravel announced on Oct. 17 that it has joined the nonprofit Fetch.ai Foundation. It also announced the launch of the first AI-powered travel agent for developers on the Fetch.ai marketplace.

Dtravel’s decentralized home-sharing platform was launched in 2021 with the expressed purpose of providing an alternative to centralized vacation rental platforms such as Airbnb.

Fetch.ai is a decentralized open marketplace platform where developers can develop, deploy, modify and integrate AI agents on the Fetch.ai blockchain. 

According to the Oct. 17 announcement, Dtravel’s intelligent vacation rental discovery agent is now available for developers in the Fetch.ai developer marketplace. Essentially, the tool allows developers to integrate Dtravel’s peer-to-peer networking agent, which is powered by AI, into their projects via Fetch.ai.

Peter Busch, chairman of the Fetch.ai Foundation, called the collaboration a “significant step toward a more efficient, intelligent, and user-centric travel ecosystem.”  

Related: Fetch.ai, Imperial College partner to launch AI lab

Decentralized travel

The travel industry is dominated by a handful of centralized businesses such as Expedia and Priceline, but targeted travel businesses such as Airbnb also represent a significant portion of the vacation industry’s capitalization.

Decentralized travel offers an alternative to the intermediaries-based paradigm and enables end-to-end solutions for travel and accommodations. In practice, this could lead to lower costs for both renters and property owners when it comes to vacation rentals and home-sharing.

It could also serve as a beacon for the entire decentralized finance movement as the tech boom of the 2010s gives way to the decentralized technology movement that has accelerated in recent years.

Cynthia Huang, CEO of Dtravel, said that the entire travel industry can benefit “hugely” from AI.

“It requires a two-pronged approach to be successful — the first is developing the technology and second, and most importantly, creating an ethical framework for collecting and using data that will power these agents,” said Huang.

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