Total cost of ownership
Every time you book a hotel, the platform earns a fee. Booking.com and Expedia keep it as profit. ZEV City aims to route part of that value into tokenized clean energy participation. This page illustrates the model logic, not a guaranteed yield statement.
Hotel booking comparison
Same hotel, same room, five nights. The price is the same everywhere. The only difference is what you get back.
Price you pay
£800
You get back
£0
TCO
£800
No platform. No rewards. No energy investment. You pay £800 and that's the end of it.
Price you pay
£800
You get back
~£8 in points
TCO
~£792
You might get loyalty points worth ~£8 — but they expire, have restrictions, and lock you into one platform. Booking Holdings earned £23B in 2024. You got points.
Price you pay
£800
You get back
£6–10 in points
TCO
~£790–794
Similar story. Expedia points worth £6–10 on a good day — with expiry dates and platform lock-in. The rest goes to shareholders.
Price you pay
£800
You get back
40 zGBP
TCO
£760
You receive 40 zGBP as a modelled clean-energy allocation outcome. It represents tokenized participation in infrastructure value creation. The exact legal and on-chain form depends on the production contract version.
Price you pay
£800
You get back
40 zGBP + airdrops
TCO
Potentially below £760
40 zGBP remains the base illustrative allocation, with possible airdrops if governance activates them in a later phase. This is a target tokenomics scenario, not a currently live guarantee.
Traditional platforms give you points that expire. ZEV City is designed to give users tokenized participation in energy value creation. The important comparison is what portion of platform margin comes back to the user and community.
Why can Phase 2 look better in the model? Two reasons. First, higher margins can support larger energy allocation per booking. Second, community governance may activate an airdrop pool. Both assumptions depend on the final architecture and should be read as scenario logic.
Cumulative impact
Each booking lowers your cumulative TCO. Here's what Phase 1 looks like over time — assuming the same £800 booking.
1 trip
40
zGBP earned
5 trips
200
zGBP earned
10 trips
400
zGBP earned
20 trips
800
zGBP earned
After 20 bookings, the model assigns £800 worth of zGBP-denominated clean-energy participation. This is an illustrative framework for user value, not a statement that all redemption and return mechanics are already live today.
You take two trips a year. Nothing extravagant — a long weekend here, a week away there. In ten years, you've made 20 bookings.
On Booking.com, those trips cost you £16,000 with a TCO of roughly £15,840 after points. You got some loyalty credits. Maybe a free night once.
On ZEV City, the model routes part of your booking value into clean energy participation. Your holidays do more than consume margin, they help fund infrastructure if the allocation and contract flow are executed as designed.
Solar mining comparison
Plug-in solar panels are often sold at similar market prices. The difference here is what happens after you buy one.
€300 → You get a panel. It generates electricity. That's it.
€300 → Same panel + 12 zEUR over 3 years (0.33/month) for uploading generation data. Your balcony generates electricity and mines tokens.
€300 → Same panel + 24 zEUR over 3 years + weekly airdrops from the community pool. Your panel becomes a mining node in a decentralised energy network.
The hardware may be similar. The electricity is the same. But with ZEV City, your balcony solar is intended to feed verified generation data into a tokenized energy system, alongside mining-style rewards defined by contract rules.
The obvious question
ZEV City aims to use standard market pricing. In many cases the hotel sets the price, but exact parity can vary by inventory, affiliate feed, and market conditions.
The only difference is what you get back.
Traditional platforms give you points that expire and lock you in. ZEV City is aiming to return part of platform margin as tokenized clean-energy participation under verifiable rules.
For solar panels, the same principle applies. Manufacturer pricing often anchors the market, but channel pricing can still vary. ZEV City differentiates by converting part of its margin into mining rewards and verifiable energy-network participation.
Your next trip can help fund clean energy through a more transparent allocation model. Same trip category, more accountable impact logic.