As the world begins to recover from Covid-19, the role of digital health data in enabling international travel to resume has become a hot topic among travellers, the travel industry and policymakers.
A new global study commissioned by Amadeus, which connects over 1.6 billion people a year to local travel providers in over 190 countries, has revealed that 96% of Singaporeans would be comfortable using digital health passports to help restart travel, the highest among the nine countries that were surveyed globally.
The study also looked at factors that travellers will take into consideration when it comes to storing health data and found that:
* 63% of Singaporean travellers would be more likely to store health data on an app where a travel company has partnered with a trusted healthcare company.
* Three in four Singaporean travellers (74%) agreed that they would more likely feel comfortable sharing health data if the airline they frequently travel with offered a way to store travel health data in an app.
* 51% of Singaporean travellers said that having a travel app that could be used across the entire journey would greatly improve the overall travel experience, while 51% said they would be reassured that all their information is in one place, and 49% indicated this would reduce stress around travel.
While Singaporean travellers are receptive in sharing their health data, they remain cautious about travelling, with only 23% saying they would book international travel within six weeks of restrictions lifting, compared with a global average of 41% across all the markets in the study.
The survey was conducted in late February 2021 by global insight-driven research firm?Censuswide?to explore?traveller?sentiment in light of COVID-19 towards digital health data and technology to help rebuild travel.
The findings were based on 9,055 respondents residing in France, Germany, Spain, UAE, Russia, India, Singapore, UK and US who have travelled abroad in the last 18 months (with a minimum of 1,000 respondents per market).
Fieldwork was carried out between 18 and 26 February 2021.
Mieke De Schepper, Managing Director of Amadeus Asia Pacific, said: “Markets across Asia Pacific (APAC) have shown tremendous resilience in light of COVID-19 and this survey shows us that travellers want to start travelling again. Singaporeans have the highest level of receptiveness when it comes to digital health passports among other APAC and western countries. The survey proves that travellers are placing their confidence in digital health passports, which is key in shaping how travel will be rebuilt moving forward.”
De Schepper added: “The travel industry is resilient and we will build it back better than before. This survey further highlights the need for all of us, within the industry, to work together with the government in order to achieve this.”
Christophe Bousquet, CTO, Amadeus, said: “This study highlights once more the key role that technology will play in rebuilding travel. We’ve seen a shift since our last survey, as travellers now place more focus on mobile and touchless technology, crucial areas that will clearly strengthen traveller confidence. It’s also very relevant to see that travellers are open to digital health passports and sharing their data as they move through the journey, once the right safeguards are in place. At Amadeus, we’re committed to rebuilding a better industry, together with our customers and partners.”
In the journey towards travel recovery, Amadeus has recently added new capabilities to Traveler ID, a secure platform that connects, digitalises identity and health document verifications and automates traveller identification for a smoother travel journey. Traveler ID is part of Amadeus’ Safe Travel ecosystem that helps to restart travel by working with governments and travel providers to build and create a safe and trusted environment for travelers to begin traveling again.
To gather more insights into how the travel industry can rebuild, Amadeus, a global leader in travel technology, commissioned research to learn more about travellers’ top concerns around digital health data, their comfort levels with sharing and storing their data, and the solutions that may help to alleviate their concerns for future travel.
Learn more about the results of the survey at: https://amadeus.com/en/
