Overview

Having grown exponentially over the past few years, Travala has firmly established itself as the leading web3 travel company. Explosive booking growth from 2021 onwards, as well as key partnership deals penned with leading multinational travel companies, have validated the need for a crypto-first online travel agency. This need will only continue to grow as blockchain becomes an integral part of the world’s communication infrastructure and crypto adoption continues to expand.

Travala’s partnership with the AVA Foundation has been a key driver of this growth. The AVA token’s primary function is as a travel loyalty token which powers the Smart Program, with thousands of travellers benefiting from the program’s incentives and givebacks. Several initiatives have also been developed in this time that have expanded both the Travala and AVA ecosystems, including the world’s first NFT-based Travel Loyalty Program, a crypto VIP Luxury Concierge Service, and most recently, the implementation of the Open Passport.

Despite all that has been achieved to date, the vision for AVA has always been much more ambitious. The AVA Foundation’s overarching mission is to create a decentralised, self-sufficient, and blockchain-based travel ecosystem with AVA at its core. By modernising the traditional travel loyalty points model and multiplying the utility of these ‘points’ within an expansive ecosystem via tokenisation, the AVA token can power a comprehensive web3 travel ecosystem to provide travellers with far-reaching utility.

To achieve this sustainably over the long term and at scale commensurate with the growth of the ecosystem, a revitalisation of AVA is needed. This upgrade would see AVA become the heart of the ecosystem while progressively decentralising, alongside further mechanics that bolster AVA’s utility, strengthen the Smart Program, and expand the broader ecosystem.

The proposed changes outlined in this proposal have been put together over the course of several months in consultation with key stakeholders. Wider community involvement is now being sought, as it is paramount that these proposed changes are supported by the majority of the community.

The contents of this AVA 2.0 Proposal include the high-level plan for revitalising AVA if the proposal passes with:

• The implementation of progressively decentralised governance, along with increased funding for the AVA Community Pool

• New use cases, including the launch of “AVA Deals”, which would offer exclusive discounts on thousands of travel products bookable exclusively in AVA

• A revamped Smart Program, including the reintroduction of the Smart Bonus

To implement these new initiatives and continue scaling existing use cases, a revision of the mechanics is needed.

Therefore, this proposal seeks the community’s approval to expand the AVA token supply from the current 61 million to 100 million over 10 years to support this ambitious ecosystem growth. The new tokens will be reflective of the anticipated growth of the Smart Program stemming from these new initiatives, as well as the overall growth of the ecosystem.

Approximately 80% of the new supply would be assigned to fund community initiatives and loyalty incentives, with at least 20% of the additional tokens provided directly to the AVA Community Pool.

For those of you who have been following the project for a while, you may recall that the original max supply of AVA was intended to be 100 million, which was later reduced to the current ~61 million. Reinstating the max supply to 100 million AVA will allow more initiatives to be undertaken that expand the AVA ecosystem through additional utility, aligning the original mechanics with the revised long-term vision.

The additional supply would be unlocked over a 10-year period, with the supply of tokens growing at an average of 5% per year. This will provide a limited amount of AVA to sustainably support the ecosystem’s core functions, including distributing Smart Program rewards, providing Community Pool contributions, grants, and introducing new use cases.

Separate from the proposal, the AVA token will be migrated to the BNB Smart Chain (BEP-20) and Ethereum (ERC-20), with support for the BNB Beacon Chain (BEP-2) discontinued. This migration will happen regardless of the vote. More details will be released in a separate post closer to the migration date.

The following sections will expand on each of the core areas of the updated AVA ecosystem: decentralisation, utility, the Smart Program, and the ecosystem mechanics.

Decentralisation 2.0

If the AVA 2.0 Proposal passes, a process of progressive decentralisation will be introduced. The goal of the AVA Foundation is to create a decentralised, blockchain-based travel ecosystem in which AVA is central. From payments to loyalty mechanics to governance, it is envisioned that the community will determine AVA’s direction and contribute to its expansion.

As the first phase of progressive decentralisation, Smart Members will be able to vote on and submit proposals. This will be done to ensure that anyone submitting or voting on a proposal has a vested interest in the future of AVA. Over time, it is envisioned that the on-chain governance structure and mechanisms will evolve to include all AVA holders as greater decentralisation is achieved. This will be carefully developed to establish an initial system that ensures proposals are legitimate, feasible, and not damaging to the long-term sustainability of the ecosystem.

To ensure growth initiatives can be executed, 20% of the total increased AVA token supply will be allocated directly to the AVA Community Pool over 10 years on top of the existing AVA balance. This will provide a much greater contribution to the pool than is currently possible, incentivising more community-backed ecosystem growth initiatives to be funded.

The governance system will continue to decentralise until all functions are ultimately handed over to the community, at which point all AVA ecosystem matters will be put forward by and voted on by the community.

AVA Utility 2.0

If the AVA 2.0 Proposal passes, several new use cases will be introduced into the ecosystem to drive further utility and demand to the AVA token:

Governance

As the AVA ecosystem becomes more decentralised, AVA will be the governance token needed to vote for future changes and improvements to the ecosystem, expanding on the current Community Vote by enabling members to autonomously submit proposals and vote to dictate the direction of the token and ecosystem.

AVA Deals

A new section called “AVA Deals” will be added to Travala, with thousands of heavily discounted travel products at up to 60% off available to be booked exclusively with AVA. This will be one of the premier new use cases if the AVA 2.0 Proposal passes, positioning AVA as the clear payment option of choice for travellers and as the focal point of the Travala platform. The utility is expected to generate more interest for AVA and introduce the benefit of AVA to new users in a significantly more compelling manner.

Exclusive Payments

AVA will become the exclusive payment option for key areas within the ecosystem. The minting of new Open Passports and stamps on Travala will only be made possible with AVA, and exclusive collections of Open Passport stamps will also be made available to acquire only with AVA. As is the case now, the Smart Program will remain accessible only with AVA. With the ecosystem’s expansion, the community will be able to decide in what cases to implement exclusive AVA payments and in which circumstances to provide a wider range of options.

AVA Open Loyalty

With the expanded token supply, the AVA Foundation will develop and promote the AVA Open Loyalty API for other projects across various industries (such as travel, crypto, and others) to build web3 loyalty reward programs powered by AVA. Similar to the Smart Program on Travala, this new AVA Open Loyalty API will allow projects to implement a set of flexible loyalty reward APIs powered by AVA, further extending the utility of the AVA token outside of the Travala ecosystem. The AVA Foundation will also launch a Grants Program to provide milestone-based funding to support certain projects building their loyalty programs on top of the AVA Open Loyalty API.

Future Use Cases

With the expanded token supply, the AVA Foundation will also evaluate other future use cases in consultation with the community, with initial ideas such as decentralised reviews, direct contracting, the development of a decentralised sales force, and additional payments utility. These ideas are currently in the concept stage, though several of these have been mentioned previously throughout various channels.

Note: if the proposal passes, the AVA Foundation will develop a whitepaper with updated token details, including the new use cases.

Smart Program 2.0

If the AVA 2.0 Proposal passes, the first major improvement that will be executed as part of this plan is the launch of a revitalised Smart Program that better leverages this fundamental function of the AVA token by making the loyalty program more rewarding, intuitive, and sustainable.

Improvements will eventually be actionable via community governance activities, though the initial changes will include the following:

1. Reintroduction of the AVA Smart Bonus

The AVA Smart Bonus will be reintroduced, enabling Smart members to receive additional rewards while participating in the loyalty program.

2. Simplified Entry Requirements

The first tier of the Smart Program (Basic) currently requires members to lock up 50 AVA. For new members, especially those new to the web3 space, this can create a barrier to entry. In order to grow the Smart Program and encourage new members to join and progress through the tiers, there is a strong need for a simpler entry point. Various approaches—including a free basic entry point membership—are being considered to resolve this challenge.

3. Re-evaluated Tier Structure

There are currently seven tiers of the Smart Program. However, the benefits between each of the tiers are not sufficiently differentiated enough to incentivise members to progress through the tiers. Therefore, various strategies will be explored to make the value proposition of each tier more clear and distinctive.

4. Additional Partner Benefits

Similar to how airport lounge access was added via Priority Pass for Diamond members, further partnerships will be explored to add more benefits for Smart members across various tiers, not just the Diamond tier. These partnerships may be with travel or web3 partners, with the view to provide additional utility for Smart members.

Ecosystem Mechanics 2.0

If the AVA 2.0 Proposal passes, the AVA Foundation will upgrade the existing token contract to the original 100 million AVA total token supply. This additional supply will be unlocked over a 10-year period, with the supply of tokens growing at an average of 5% per year. These changes will support the long-term sustainability and growth of the ecosystem, including the advancement of the Smart Program, decentralisation and the development of future utility.

The high-level changes to the ecosystem mechanics are as follows:

• The total AVA supply will increase to a maximum of 100 million by 2032 from the current 61 million total supply

• The average token supply growth rate will be 5% over 10 years

• No team tokens will be allocated

By further developing the use cases for AVA—such as Smart Program benefits and the AVA Deals initiative that will be introduced if the proposal passes—additional utility will be provided to a greater number of travellers, with that growth enabling the AVA ecosystem to scale with the level of ever-expanding utility to better serve travellers across the globe.

Approximately 80% of the new supply would be assigned to fund community initiatives and loyalty incentives, with at least 20% of the additional tokens provided directly to the AVA Community Pool, over which the community will have an increasing level of influence. The majority of the new tokens would be assigned to the revitalisation of the Smart Program, new ecosystem use cases, and any other new future loyalty initiatives.

Proposal Voting Timeline

For the proposal to pass, the majority of the total votes cast by Smart members must be in favour of this proposal.

Voting for this proposal is scheduled to open on Tuesday 11 July 2023 at 7:00 AM UTC and will run for 72 hours until Friday 14 July 2023 at 7:00 AM UTC. To participate in the vote, register for the Smart Program. The higher your tier, the more votes you receive.

Regarding the token migration, more information will be shared about the specific details closer to the migration date.

We’ll be active within our Telegram and Discord communities leading up to vote. We’re looking forward to the additional level of engagement that the community will have if the vote is successful and can’t wait to see your ideas come to life within the AVA ecosystem!