DUBAI, Feb. 26 (Xinhua) -- Dubai will launch within two years a business-to-business platform to further boost tourism, Dubai Tourism said on Monday.
The platform is "open, real-time, and secure," the government-controlled tourism organization added.
The aim of the open market ecosystem is to give global travelers and tour operators "a direct choice across the breadth and depth of the local tourism inventory," it said.
The B2B platform will be based on blockchain technology, a process which is defined as a digital ledger.
It enables users to process changes in a digital document simultaneously through a continues list of records, the blocks which are connected through cryptography.
Helal Saeed Almarri, director general of Dubai Tourism, said they aim at global leaders in tourism innovation, adding that travel today "is undergoing one of the most emphatic sectoral transformations due to the radical pace of technological disruption across every aspect of the consumer journey."
This project is part of the Dubai government's "10X" masterplan which aims to put the Gulf Arab sheikhdom 10 years ahead of all governments globally within two years.
Dubai attracted a total of 15.79 million international overnight visitors in 2017, posting a 6.2 percent increase compared to the 5 percent growth in 2016, Dubai Tourism said earlier in the month.
The travel and hospitality sector contributes over 9 percent to the Dubai economy.
