Project update: First guests have already started their reservations. Roll out continues.
There is a feeling of great harmony among the team right now. After years of work, overcoming the challenges of Covid19 and constant improvements and feedback, our first users are making their reservations on the Tratok Travel Ecosystem. It is a truly rewarding feeling to see all the hard work, sacrifice and determination pay off and begin to bear fruit.
There is an old saying that we are familiar with:
“Actions are louder than words.”
The Team believes that we have stood by these values and delivered under the most challenging of circumstances and are elated that we can now share this marvel with the world. While others just talked about how great they are, Tratok built something great.
We understand that many people were concerned over a lack of marketing over the last 18 months. Tratok has clearly communicated its views on this several times:
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- We believe in products, not promises. A working ecosystem has more value in the long term than hyped vaporware that benefits from speculation in the short term and then becomes valueless. Just ask all the supporters of white elephant blockchain projects that evaporated and they will tell you whether this is a responsible policy or not.
- Tratok was privately funded and has not benefited from coin offerings or public sales. Management decided to reserve its marketing budget for the correct time and not decimate it with travel campaigns during a time when all news was dominated by Covid19 headlines and travel was extremely restricted. It is not reasonable to ask the founders who have already invested millions of dollars of their own money to allocate a budget to hype a project just so some short-term speculators can benefit at the expense of the public.
- Real value creation is derived from a real ecosystem with disruptive use cases that is applicable and sustainable in a regulated environment and beneficial for all stakeholders in the long run.
- During challenging times, resources must be used for vital processes and ensure that the business remains a going concern.
Now with that clarified; let us share some statistics (Updated May 2022):
| Criteria | Number (29 May 2022) |
| Accounts Activated | 62,150 |
| Bookings Made | 5,816 |
| Bookings Cancelled* | 3,218 |
| Net Confirmed Bookings | 2,598 |
| Successful Bookings | 2,581 |
| Bookings Errors** | 17 |
| Conversion Ratio | 4.18% |
| Error Ratio | 0.65% |
- * 3174 of these bookings were canceled within the same hour. Our information shows that the overwhelming majority of these were users attempting to see if they could withdraw the travel bonus balance this way or abuse the rebate program. Unluckily for them, we have actually done several rounds of live pilot tests over the course of development, and such a lousy exploit attempt was never going to work. A few others are likely to have canceled to either test the refund policy or perhaps even due to a change in their holiday plans.
** All 17 of these errors are attributed to one provider (an airline) who had incorrectly implemented Tratok’s data feeds into their own CRM. Clients were alerted within 15 mins of the booking.
Overall, this is a slow start, but it is a promising start with a very good conversion rate (even after being cleaned) and with a very low error rate. Both of these factors will improve as the system becomes more mature and stakeholders become more familiar with this new technology. With respect to the speed at which we continue to roll out the platform, this is a matter being discussed by management and contingent on a number of factors. A revised plan of action will be shared in Q2 2022.
Wishing those of you who have already booked successful, safe and happy journeys,
The Tratok Team