WTTC proposes one-stop digital solution to ease travel
The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) has published a new report
on best practices and support for governments for the introduction of a
common ‘Digital Travel Portal’, to allow safe, stress-free travel, that
would reduce delays at airports.
The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted a lack of global coordination as
governments introduced a constant patchwork of digital and paper
requirements.
WTTC is calling for alignment to build resilience and ensure there is a
clear global system focused on an individual’s health status that does
not bring international travel to a standstill, which throughout the
pandemic caused serious economic damage.
‘Implementing a Digital Travel Portal’, created by WTTC and The Commons
Project Foundation, is aimed at governments and builds on the
previously released ‘Digital Solutions for Reviving International
Travel’ report published in December 21’.
The report gives a blueprint to governments on how to implement a
Digital Travel Portal not only during Covid, but during any future
health crises that threaten economies and global Travel & Tourism,
by ensuring health checks are based on the individual, prior to
travelling, to achieve a seamless journey.
The portal would enable travellers to electronically share, for
instance, their digital Covid vaccination status, or any other required
documentation, before they begin their journey.
Once booked, travellers would simply visit the online portal managed by
the destination, where their documentation would be uploaded, verifying
in seconds their status.
The data can also be combined with other standard security and visa requirements.
The previous report provided eight recommendations and addressed the
global challenge posed by ever-changing policies and processes, which
are not only complex and unsustainable, but also further hinder the
recovery of an already struggling sector.
Julia Simpson, WTTC President & CEO, said: “Over the past two
years, governments reached for their own solutions to halt the pandemic
by restricting travel, but the result was chaos. Chaos for the confused
traveller and chaos for economies with the loss of 62 million jobs
worldwide in 2020.
“Today we publish a report that provides guidance on how to create a
single digital travel solution that governments can adopt and join up at
an international level.
“If we ever face another pandemic, we must do a better job. People
should be allowed to travel based on their individual health status by
using a one-stop government digital platform before they start their
journey.
“Governments talk about resilience post Covid. By investing in this
system now, governments and their economies will be better protected
against any future pandemics.”
Zhenya Lindgardt, CEO of The Commons Project Foundation, said: “As the
Covid-19 pandemic continues to evolve, now is the time for governments
to ensure preparedness for whatever may come next.
“The past two years have shown us that health will likely remain a core
component of border crossing moving forward, and the implementation of
digital portals for health status verification is a critical step toward
building more resilience in the face of public health crises. “The Commons Project is proud to support WTTC in its effort to help
countries lay this foundation for resuming safe travel and keeping
borders open.”
The report offers 12 recommendations as general best practice
principles to be applied to the whole Digital Travel Portal: privacy by
design and default, compliance with data protection and privacy laws,
language capability, 24x7 communication, and legal path in case of
disputes, amongst others.
The report also provides five recommendations related to specific
features and functionalities considered to be critical for an effective
portal, providing health security and an efficient experience, such as
traveller questionnaire, and government integration, amongst others.
For countries still requiring Covid status checks of travellers, this
report (along with the December report) provides best practice advice
for collecting and analysing traveller health status information
pre-travel and digitally connecting the output with travel operators,
reducing traveller anxiety and burden at airports
For countries that have removed Covid status checks, this report also
provides a resilience and preparedness tool for the next pandemic, or
other major incident, with best practice advice on how to efficiently
collect and process digital health traveller information before their
journey.
Lastly, Digital Travel Portals could also be integrated with other
government services, such as visa application processes, to provide an
efficient digital one-stop-shop for governments and travellers
