Digital Passport is born

The digital health passport is one of the major revolutions for the travel and corporate events sector. The mobility that from the moment of the beginning of the pandemic was almost completely interrupted, can regain its initial levels thanks to the digital health passport. The document would facilitate the incorporation of travelers into the activity in the tourist chain, avoiding the spread of the virus.

The solution allows to store the medical data of the COVID-19 tests and thus identify the status of the travelers. The use of a technological platform for information management ensures compliance with data protection regulations and their privacy.

The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has presented, together with Wanderlust, the first application, called World Tourist Identification (WTID),which will allow travelers to carry their passport and identification and sanitary documents, tourist services and means of payment on their mobile phone so that they do not need physical media.

The WTID allows to integrate four functionalities: personal identification, tourist and commercial services, health (medical history, certificates of vaccination of users or traceability) and payment methods.

The WTID, in addition to facilitating monitoring of the health authorities of the place you travel, will allow tourists to pay digitally in hotels, public transport or museums.

According to UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili: “The restart of tourism must be managed with caution and accountability, prioritizing public health and making full use of innovation.” For this reason, since the beginning of the current crisis, UNWTO has been promoting the power of innovation to help mitigate COVID-19’s impact on tourism and prepare the sector to recover better and stronger.

“The restart of tourism must be managed with caution and accountability, prioritizing public health and making full use of innovation.”
ZURAB POLOLIKASHVILI

WTID is in beta and will be launched this month in pilot cases, and will be definitively implemented with the progressive standardization of the global tourism situation, to help make it a safer, more transparent and agile sector for both tourists and operators.