Digital Health Passes: How it started vs. How it’s going

Over a year ago, the travel industry established a need for digital health passes (DHPs), but few have been fully deployed globally. BCD Travel’s new report looks at the current and future state.

Organizations have been working to develop digital health passes (DHPs) since the need for globally consistent, privacy-protected health credentials became evident more than a year ago. BCD Travel’s Research & Innovation and Global Crisis Management teams have developed a new report, Digital Health Passes Update, to help travel teams better prepare their business travelers for trips where DHPs may be useful. The is a companion to BCD’s March 2021 report on DHPs.

What’s inside: 

  • An overview of some of the key players in DHP development 
  • Key things to consider when assessing DHPs for your program 
  • Find out about the approaches being pursued unilaterally by some airlines

Part of our normal
DHPs are electronic health status verification solutions being developed by technology firms, airlines, multinational organizations and governments to help support the restart of safe travel. As fully functioning apps, DHPs can act as an information source and means of communication for all parties involved in travel. BCD experts says they will likely remain a part of our travel experiences well into the near future.

“I’d expect digital health passes to retain their role as a travel enabler for some time; certainly once the pandemic is downgraded to endemic status, and quite possibly beyond that,” said Mike Eggleton, BCD’s Director, Research & Intelligence and a lead author of the report.

Ideally, DHPs will satisfy two needs as countries and boundaries continue opening: restoring safe cross-border travel and getting people back on the path to normality at places of work, events, hospitality and other venues. The reality? Widespread DHP introduction and adoption has yet to occur, as the organizations delivering them adopt different approaches to the solution, resulting in fragmented offerings to travelers. Digital health pass developers ultimately need to design solutions that are sufficiently interoperable, agile and flexible to accommodate the complexities and evolution of travel restrictions.

Help your travelers hit the road with confidence. Find digital health pass requirements, airport testing sites and other travel support on BCD’s award-winning COVID-19 Information Hub.

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