Travel Securely Securely Travel
SITA is availing their Digital Travel Declaration solution to governments. This will permit passengers to share required health and immunization documentation with governments ahead of travel in a streamlined fashion.
CEO of SITA at Airports & Borders, David Lavorel commented, “In many cases, today’s onerous health requirements are discouraging travelers from flying or leading to long lines at airports. As an industry-owned organization working at the crossroads of airlines, airports, and governments, we are able to connect the dots and streamline processes around health documentation. Making Digital Travel Declaration freely available to governments will be an investment in the recovery of our industry, and we hope will go some way towards addressing the challenges we all face today.”
SITA tells us in the press release, recent research from IATA highlighted that of 50 countries surveyed, 38 countries had some form of COVID-19 restriction on who could enter. For many countries, economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic relies heavily on travel and tourism. According to WTTC’s 2020 Economic Impact Report, in 2019 travel and tourism was responsible for one in 10 jobs, making a 10.3% contribution to global GDP and generating one in four of all new jobs. However, inefficiencies and a lack of common standards around managing health documentation remain the single biggest obstacle to rebuilding the travel and tourism industry and supporting economic growth.
SITA notes how it has worked closely with governments, leveraging its Electronic Travel Authorization solution to deliver a health-oriented travel declaration that informs governments on passenger health status in advance of travel and optionally issues authority to travel. Digital Travel Declaration has been operational and used by governments around the world since October 2020, making it easy for travelers to complete health declarations in a few quick steps. A response is shared as proof of approval to travel, so the passenger can demonstrate to airlines and airports that they have all the correct documentation.
While SITA is offering the solution “free” it is only for the first year. Securely Travel opines this is an excellent solution, to streamline and unify global health declarations which travelers are required to provide, and should obviate the need for one off solutions to attestations and proof of immunization.
