Camino Messenger Explained
February 19, 2024
Setting the global standard in travel data management and distribution
Setting the global standard in travel data management and distribution
Camino Messenger is a pivotal solution designed to streamline business operations, significantly reduce API costs, provide effortless connections with new partners within the network, and replace manual processes with the help of a unified travel data standard.
Camino Network is the first genuinely community-owned and guided platform within the travel industry. It offers an innovative digital infrastructure explicitly tailored for travel-related businesses. It is based on distributed ledger technology, designed to address a wide range of challenges that both large and small travel brands face daily: from overloaded tech stack to a lack of unified data standards and lengthy settlement processes.
Camino Network is an ecosystem created by travel experts for travel experts. It is designed to enhance business operations with digital technologies.
At the heart of Camino Network's vision lies its community-driven nature. The network's backbone is its consortium of travel-related companies serving as validators of the network. All of them are verified through KYB and KYC processes, ensuring a transparent and trustworthy environment. Regardless of their size, companies have equal rights to propose new initiatives and vote on solutions for the network.
With the successful mainnet launch of Camino Network in Q2 2023, the development continued with the first digital tool that leverages blockchain connectivity and verified consortium community to provide participants with seamless data exchange in a w2w (wallet-to-wallet) manner.
In the article, you can learn about three main concepts: Camino Messenger, Camino Messenger Protocol, and Camino Messenger Bot, and the way to use them in your travel business or how to contribute to building new messaging types and further infrastructure. Provided you have questions, please join the Discord server to ask and get support.
Camino Messenger is set to transform how travel data is managed and distributed within the network. In the complex web of travel services, where agents, operators, and suppliers trade everything from hotel nights to flight seats, the process has been traditionally overloaded by fragmented communication due to multiple APIs, leading to inefficiencies and increased transaction costs.
Moreover, within the travel industry, each vertical, from accommodations to transportation, operates within its silo, making horizontal integration a complex task. However, the agnostic nature of blockchain technology underlying Camino Messenger provides a solution. Now, all important data, like bookings, is verified among different parties, making the process quick, cheap, and consistent for everyone. Hence, providers can better control distribution, inventory, and pricing within the ecosystem built with a new level of interoperability and collaboration across all travel verticals.
Leveraging the decentralized blockchain connectivity with digitally verified participants Camino Messenger provides all the parties with a new paradigm of travel data exchange and transacting. Now a B2B crypto wallet can act as the singular set of credentials needed for any transaction, eliminating the chaos of connecting and managing numerous APIs. Never before was the search for suppliers and offers, booking, upselling, and modifying travel services so straightforward.
Companies operating with verified Camino Wallets can use the Messenger to build wallet-to-wallet communication. In such an environment, travel service providers and distributors can communicate 1:1. This wallet-driven communication provides travel-related businesses with a seamless deal-making framework based on a faster, more secure, and higher throughput and volume of data. With the growth and development of the Messenger, a wallet-to-all model can be implemented to provide two more scenarios of communication: posting messages for all network participants and posting messaging for a selected group predefined by certain signals.
On top of this standardized process is the ability to define payments concurrently with bookings, where both distributors and suppliers can jointly set the terms for payment conditions. You receive a system with immediate and transparent transactions, significantly reducing the need for credit risk insurance, eliminating payment delays, and substantially improving cash flow. Forget about reliance on credit or the associated risks of disputes.
Camino Messenger is built according to comprehensive frameworks, unified travel data standard and messaging types reflected in the Camino Messenger Protocol. It provides a structured definition of what exactly can be traded via the Messenger: hotel, flight, search traffic, and much more.
In Camino Messenger, the main message types serve as the backbone for streamlined communication across all travel services within the network. Each type is designed with the clarity and specificity of each travel vertical. Below, you can find a table of all currently available message types.
All travel-related companies are welcome to join the consortium to introduce and develop new messaging types that can represent specific and unique products.
| Message Type | Description |
|---|---|
| 🚨 ping | Essential for verifying service availability and performing system health checks. |
| 🤝 partners | Facilitates the discovery of all active trading partners on the Camino Network. |
| 💵 network_fee | Outlines the costs associated with network transactions and messaging fees. |
| 🍱 product_list | Provides a catalog of available products or services from various suppliers. |
| 👀 product_details | Offers detailed information about specific products or services from suppliers. |
| 🛏 accommodation | Specific to messages related to hotel and holiday home bookings. |
| 🚊 transport | Covers messaging for booking flights, rail tickets, and transfers. |
| 🎢 activity | Pertains to booking tickets for excursions and various activities. |
| 🚘 vehicle | Will be used for messages regarding bicycle, motorbike, car and camper rentals. |
| 🛡 insurance | Will be used for insurance-related messages. |
| 🏕 camping | Planned for camping-related services and bookings. |
| 📦 package | Combines multiple service types into package offerings. |
| ✈️ flight_status | Provides real-time updates on flight statuses. |
| 🛂 entry_destination | Shares requirements and information about travel destinations. |
Nested messages, or "types" offer detailed schemas for managing complex data structures like traveler profiles, geographical coordinates, and currency types. This approach means that only a single development effort is needed. For example, once the date of the trip and the destination are input, this information can be utilized across all travel products being searched for within the Messenger.
| Proto File | Description |
|---|---|
| coordinate.proto | Records precise geographical coordinates for locations. |
| currency.proto | Manages various types of currencies and their specific attributes. |
| date.proto | Provides a versatile framework for handling dates and related data. |
| distance.proto | Measures and classifies distances, adaptable to different units. |
| filter.proto | Enables both dynamic and static filtering for refined data selection. |
| geo_location.proto | Integrates multiple geographical details into a unified protocol. |
| traveller.proto | Details traveler profiles, including personal preferences and information. |
| travel_period.proto | Defines specific durations for travel, from short trips to extended vacations. |
Sam Jaarsma leads the development of Camino Messenger, leveraging his extensive two-decade experience in travel technology. Since joining Chain4Travel as VP of Standards, he has been focused on innovating travel distribution through blockchain technology. The initial types were developed and launched under his guidance in close collaboration with early adopters and supporters of Camino Network.
After the first V1Alpha version released on 18 January 2024 each Message Type will be improved with the feedback and reviews from the partners. Therefore, all travel companies are welcome to learn, test, and introduce further message types corresponding to their travel-related products.
The Camino Messenger Bot (CMB) is the digital programmable "operator" of the Messenger. It is fully aligned with the frameworks and travel data standard disclosed in the protocol. Developers using this software extension can embed their company's infrastructure and open a direct line to the W2W communication within Camino Network for distributors and service providers.
There is no need to cut the existing connections or change the working processes. Consider the Messenger the first step towards integrating blockchain and open-source technologies within your travel business without extensive reconfiguration.
Distributors can simplify the search, validation, and booking of travel products by automating these tasks and executing them through secure transactions. Service providers, on the other hand, can utilize the Bot to offer their services more efficiently, manage bookings, and directly interact with distributors in real time within the secure and transparent ecosystem.
The Bot is capable of handling on-chain and off-chain data interchangeably. This means that while the booking and transaction information is securely recorded on the blockchain, ensuring integrity and trust, the more volatile data like prices and availability can be communicated off-chain through the Messenger using the same Bot.
Now that you understand the central notions let's look at implementation scenarios. Since Camino Messenger is a decentralized network of messenger servers hosted by the validators of the Camino Network, first of all, both the distribution and supply partners need to have the Bot installed and can interact with it using the gRPC SDK in the following languages: Go, Java, Kotlin, Python, JavaScript, Swift, TypeScript.
After the SDK is tuned, you can facilitate encrypted communication for onboarding, searching, and validating offers.
After all the development is done, you can start searching for partners to communicate with. For this purpose, you need to use Camino Partner Configurator, which will be a part of the Camino Application Suite. By sending a "strongpartner request" to Messenger, you receive a list of all active partners available and the products or services they provide. The latter determines the message types each partner supports. In this list, you can also find the information regarding the supplierFee for each message to be charged (if any) and what kind of payment on-chain or off-chain is supported.
Travel service and product suppliers need to "onboard" their offers to provide the system with the logic of the products and services. For example, airlines and flight suppliers need to provide routes and airplane information, while accommodation suppliers inform the system about the hotels available on their side. For this onboarding and mapping process, the following commands should be executed:
Camino Messenger has a pull model booking system. It has three steps. The requester has to search, check, and book the offer. Since Camino Messenger operates on blockchain, some processes have different names. If "search" is the same, "check" and "book" are represented with "validate" and "mint" respectively.
This is the first model, and with the development of the messenger push models, where ARI (Availability, Rates, and Inventory) are pushed to distribution systems for pre-packaging, fast initial search results, and extended functionality like calendar views will be implemented.
| 🔎 Search | distributors looking for flights, hotels, and other products send out a request to various suppliers to check what is available. |
|---|---|
| ✅ Check | after receiving the replies, they pick up suitable options and double-check the information to ensure the offers are still available at the offered price — confirm before paying. |
| 🧾 Book | after confirmation, the booking is finalized with records on the blockchain, and a digital asset is minted. The payment is sent automatically to the provider, and the booking details are transferred to the agency, all in one go. |
| ℹ️ RetrieveBooking | provides distributors and suppliers with a tool to ensure their records match the records on the blockchain. It is like double-checking the reservation details for errors. Such a check can be done with the blockchain record, with the supplier record, or with both. There is also a BookingList request variant to check the status of bookings made between specific DateTime stamps and a BookingDetails request to retrieve all the details of a particular booking. |
| 🚫 CancellationRequest | is used when a travel service needs to be canceled. A distributor checks if cancelation is possible and at what price. |
| ⬆️ Upselling Request | provides confirmed bookings with the flexibility to add extra services, like an upgraded room or a special tour. Suppliers can suggest additional services to personalize the offer. The AdditionalServices Request communicates to the supplier reference to identify the booking. In the Response, any optional or alternative product or service can be offered. |
| 📝 The BookingModification Request | enables the distributor to adjust the booking details as long as the changes are available and have been previously discussed. It can be anything like switching to a different hotel or changing travel dates. This request also can be used to add optional services to the booking as required. |
Finally, the travel industry can enter the era of digital transformation with the help of open-source technology available at Camino Network. Camino Messenger opens vast opportunities in tech and business layers. All the innovative initiatives that would never go further than team brainstorms or keynote discussions are now possible:
The use of the protobuf format cuts the message size in responses from providers to distributors by almost 50%. Additionally, by omitting unnecessary static data from search responses and including the information in the ProductInfo message, the outgoing traffic for providers is further reduced by half. This not only lowers hosting costs for providers but also enhances processing efficiency on the distribution side.
The Camino Network Foundation invites all travel-related companies and travel tech enthusiasts to explore Messenger and its capabilities to change the way travel data is managed and exchanged. You can start with official documents or by joining Discord.
Camino is the travel industry blockchain. Fueled by the Camino token, it is offering a versatile network to expand current business models and to create new touristic products to delight travelers and business partners.