Travel site Expedia announced this week that it will soon be accepting bitcoin as payment for hotel bookings through its website. This would make Expedia the first major travel agency to accept bitcoin, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Expedia’s vice president of global product, Michael Gulmann, explained to the news source that the idea came from three different places at once. Gulmann explained that Expedia engineers were starting to think about the digital currency, while the company’s product and business developers doing the same thing. Lastly, customers were also beginning to voice their opinions about the matter.
“We want to start at a reasonable, small place,” he said, adding that then the company will judge if it will be possible to expand it to other parts of the business. If the trial works well – and customers support using bitcoin – Gulmann said he expects Expedia to start taking bitcoin for other bookings.
The main idea is not to become a focal point of bitcoin-related business, Gulmann said. Rather, the VP explained that when customers have an issue, the company will listen to it and see how it can solve the problem.
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