Australia is a tourism hotspot for tourists from around the world and tourist locations are always competing to grab a bigger share of the market.
Now one of these tourist locations have decided to adopt a unique approach by turning themselves into a “digital currency town“.
Agnes Water is a beach town in Queensland that is remaking itself into the first ever “digital currency town” in Australia. This move is to boost tourism in the area by attracting international travelers who use bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies.
More than 30 Agnes Water establishments have announced that they are going to start accepting cryptocurrencies as a payment method. This covers a lot of what the town offers ranging from the local pub to tour operators.
This is a big move for a town that has less than 2,000 permanent residents. The town has confirmed that it has started to officially accept bitcoin, NEM, ethereum, litecoin and bitcoin cash.
In a statement, Gordon Christian, a local real estate agent, said
We started from the ground up, shared it with a couple of businesses and they were straight on board. I guess they were international travellers themselves and had heard of these types of payments. Initially we had a good 10 businesses that just said, ‘Fine — let’s go for it’
Christian himself was the main driving force behind the push for cryptocurrencies. He started looking into it after a client asked about how to process a bitcoin payment from a customer. He was encouraged when he discovered in his research that the Brisbane International Airport, which is just five hours from Agnes Water, has started to accept cryptocurrencies at a variety of retail outlets.
TravelbyBit
Pay With Cryptocurrencies For All Services
There are 31 businesses that have agreed to accept cryptocurrency payments. Agnes Water visitors will be able to book accommodations, pay for food, and go on tours by paying in digital currency. This will be done with the help of TravelbyBit, a crypto payment startup in Queensland which has developed a point-of-sale app for the town.
The town is TravelbyBit’s biggest customer so far and the startup’s CEO, Caleb Yeoh is very optimistic about the town’s new marketing strategy. Yeoh thinks it is a smart decision to cater to a niche market like the cryptocurrency industry to boost tourist numbers. This move will eliminate the need for tourists to change their local currency into AUD and avoid paying exchange rate fees. It also limits the possibility of them being scammed when they try to change their currency at local exchange dealers.
