Safe & Seamless Traveller Journey Webinar

A global effort: The adoption of innovative digital technologies to enable seamless travel

Date: Thursday 28th January
Time: 09:00 EST (Washington DC) / 14:00 GMT (London)

The COVID-19 pandemic is proving to accelerate innovation and the integration of new technologies. Digital adoption and consumption are on the rise, with consumers now expecting contactless technologies as a basic prerequisite for a safe and seamless travel experience. These range from traveller’s viewing restaurant menus and using mobile check-in to accessing aspects of their hotel rooms all using their mobile devices. Integrated digital solutions will be fast-tracked to reduce physical touchpoints across the journey. The sector will build on and aggregate existing solutions from biometric verifications and e-gates at airports, to contactless payments. All enhancing the traveller experience and addressing new concerns around capturing health data.

To capitalize on the accelerated pace of innovation within Travel and Tourism (T&T), biometric digital identity solutions – which enable touchless experiences – should be considered over implementing solely touchless solutions. Biometrics provides several benefits, most notably reducing human interaction, by removing the need to verify one’s identity in person, while improving security and creating a better experience. Maintaining high standards of security is critical in the travel industry and incorporating biometrics gives screening authorities greater confidence in the traveller’s identity, thus reducing the risk associated with each traveller and allowing for turning the process contactless.

Join the World Travel & Tourism Council, Oliver Wyman, and industry leaders as we discuss:
- How the T&T Sector continues to confront the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and restart global travel, through significant strides in the use of biometrics
- How biometric solutions can assist the T&T Sector’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic
- The role of digital identities across the traveller journey
- Required steps to ensure a harmonized approach to the implementation of innovative biometric enabled digital identities across the T&T industry

Bring your questions to engage our leaders in the discussion about the new traveller experience.

Agenda

09:00 EST - Keynote

• Gloria Guevara, President and CEO, WTTC
• Olivier Onidi, Deputy Director-General European Commission

09:15 EST - Session 1: Digital Identity and the Traveller Experience

• Diane Sabatino, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Deputy Executive Assistant Commissioner, Office of Field Operations 
• Luca Pronzati, Chief Business Innovation Officer, MSC Cruises 
• Chris McLaughlin, Chief Operating Officer, Denver Airport 
• Brandon Lowther, VP Cyber Security, Hilton 
• Miguel Leitmann, CEO Vision-Box

This session will focus on the end-to-end traveller experience. Several facial recognition solutions for check-in at the airport, for example, require no contact with another individual. Like airlines, cruises are preparing for contactless boarding providing passengers before they leave their home allowing cruise guests complete pre-cruise information. Similar solutions have applicability to other T&T industries, such as car rental and hotel.

- What is the role of biometrics in bringing the trust back to international travel?
- Contactless experiences are more important than ever. How can contactless be implemented across the T&T industries? What initiatives are cruises, airports and airlines implementing to achieve a contactless experience?
- How is the use of a traveller’s digital identity evolving?

10:15 EST - Session 2: The enablers of Seamless travel

• Krum Garkov, Executive Director eu-LISA
• Gordon Wilson, CEO Worldreach
  
• Greg Land, Head of Aviation, Hospitality & Travel, IBM Travel
• Kevin McAleenan, CEO Pangiam and Former Acting Secretary, Department of Homeland Security
• Sean Oxley, Director of Innovation, United Airlines

This session will discuss how traveller information has become increasingly digital. Across T&T industries, paper is being removed from operations. Using mobile devices, boarding passes, airport baggage drop, hotel registration cards and other critical elements of the traveller journey are now digital. Other checkpoints are currently in transition to becoming paperless such as in the cruise industry. These paperless capabilities unlock the power of touchless experiences.

The traveller digital profile will be the final step: a fully digital form of any paper information required of travellers, such as personal identification, payment, and an increasingly important health certificate (e.g., vaccine records). To ensure global usability, it is critical that the traveller’s digital identity data uses global standards allowing for interoperability across the T&T sector and that the data is internationally recognized. To establish universal trust in the digital profile, data must be securely linked to the traveller’s identity using biometrics and must originate from trusted, government-authorized sources. Lastly, it is of the upmost importance that all technology solutions prioritize the privacy and security of a traveller’s data.

- What role does the traveller Digital Identity play?
- How the T&T sector may drive public-private partnerships for a global approach?
- What challenges are expected when incorporating health data such as the COVID vaccine with biometrics identification?
- What are the critical next steps for the private and public sector to benefit from these innovative technologies?