Restoring Public Confidence on Safe Travels

As authorities gradually begin to relax travel restrictions, easing travelers’ fears about travel-related risks and building confidence in the safety of travel is imperative. Introducing new effective measures, such as screening procedures and health checks, social distancing protocols, new travel requirements, standardized facility sanitation, and hygiene regimens, can help to make travel safer in the age of COVID-19. Governments, health experts, and industry associations are working together to achieve effective recovery protocols through meaningful action plans that optimize travel recovery efforts. 

Innovation is required to restore confidence in travel across the entire journey from making the decision to travel to ensuring safety after a trip is over. When deciding whether to travel, either for business or pleasure, an individual must weigh the differential risk of contracting COVID-19 at the destination versus staying at home. Furthermore, information about the quarantine and public health measures in place at the destination must be considered to determine whether the trip is feasible. There is a dearth of collated information to assist in individual decision making. Second, travelers are unaware of the actual risks of contracting COVID-19 during a flight. Innovation will be required to implement the measures recommended by the expert panel convened by ADB and other partners. Even if quarantine or other measures are understood by a traveler, the actual procedures may be unclear and unnerving, especially for foreign travelers without familiarity with the language. Finally, travelers may want to know if they have been exposed to infected individuals during their journey. After returning home, processes of notifying travelers of potential exposures must be developed so that travelers can get tested and protect their families and close contacts from infection. These issues all require innovation to rapidly build confidence in travel. 

Participants may explore the following consideration in developing solutions: 

• Availability of information about current health risks and public health measures (e.g. mandatory quarantine) in domestic and foreign destinations is difficult to access and rapidly changing. How can a person decide how and when to travel to a destination? 
• The travel and health experts’ panel is recommending 25 priority interventions to improve safety during the traveler’s journey. How can these interventions be implemented at scale and properly advertised to consumers? 
• Public health procedures and requirements may be confusing for foreign travelers. How can these issues be clearly communicated to travelers to reduce anxiety in traveling? 
• Contact tracing is difficult and this information is not collected consistently from travelers across the travel journey (from airport-aircraft-airport-ground transportation-hotel/home). How can data be collected from passengers to quickly identify and contact people exposed to COVID-19 even after they have returned from their journey? 

 

ADB, in collaboration with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), and other stakeholders, is convening a panel of leading experts from academia, government, global health organizations, travel and tourism, and technology to reach consensus on a set of post-COVID-19 pandemic policy recommendations that will help the travel and tourism industry in the Asia and Pacific region recover more quickly. 

Below are the 25 policy recommendations which may be updated given the evolving nature of the pandemic and new ways of doing business: 

 

STRENGTHENING MANAGEMENT AND PLANNING 

• Develop a Transport Health Authority (THA) to harmonize health screening and sanitation standards throughout travel from departure to arrival airport 
• Travel Stakeholders to develop communication plans for public health emergencies (e.g., COVID-19 outbreak) 
• Travel Stakeholders to maintain clear, consistent, and enhanced communication with customers on new health and hygiene safety protocols, both digitally and physically (e.g., posters and information displays) 
• Travel Stakeholders to establish a Crisis Coordination Team to harmonize actions and responses related to public health emergencies  
• Travel Stakeholders to train staff in any new heath policies and guidance (e.g., social distancing, thermal scanning, wearing of face masks) and to consider physical distancing in staff scheduling and training (e.g., online training, working in staggered shifts, etc.) 
• Travel Stakeholders to maintain an adequate supply of task appropriate personal protection equipment (masks, gloves, face shields, etc.) for staff  
• Travel Stakeholders to harmonize health protection and sanitation considerations for staff/crew members, including those for layover or transit in high transmission areas.  
• Travel Stakeholders to update security cameras and screening procedures to account for face mask wearing 
• Airlines and hotels to collect data to facilitate passenger/customer contract tracing, preferably in electronic form and in advance of travel 

 

INTRODUCING TRANSMISSION BARRIERS 

• Airports to restrict airport terminal access during public health emergencies to workers, travelers, and accompanying persons (e.g., for passengers with disabilities or reduced mobility, the elderly, minors, etc.) 
• All crew/staff to wear face masks and other PPEs as necessary (e.g., for duration of travel) and verify that customers have their own gloves and masks on. A number of contexts and assumptions will have to be considered around their use as the situation evolves (e.g. travel between two countries with low to no transmission). 
• Travelers purchase and wear face masks and/or other PPE (as per guidance of the local health authorities) and in situations where physical distancing cannot be maintained (e.g., in flight)  A number of contexts and assumptions will have to be considered around their use as the situation evolves (e.g. travel between two countries with low to no transmission) 
• Travel Stakeholders to install transparent protective barriers to provide physical distance between customers and employees when contact cannot be avoided 
• Travel Stakeholders to enhance facility planning to reduce the risk of transmission by temporarily removing or restricting access to high-risk areas (e.g., water fountains, play areas, or multipurpose spaces, etc.) 
• Travel Stakeholders to modify passenger/customer flow of movement to take into account physical (e.g., introducing capacity limits where possible/necessary to reduce over-crowding, introducing floor signage, etc.)  
• Travel Stakeholders to minimize touchpoints by integrating technologies to enable automation, touchless, and contactless services and by providing complimentary WIFI to encourage take up. Examples include: 

1. online / self-service check-in and self-bag drop; 
2. mobile boarding passes; 
3. cashless transactions;  
4. technology-enhanced boarding using mobile phones;  
5. touch-free equipment in toilet facilities;  
6. prepacked, sealed meals; 
7. mobile applications and QR codes;  
8. reading of passport chips,  
9. contactless biometrics such as facial or iris recognition;  
10. automated border control or eGates; 

• Travel stakeholders to provide utensils in dining areas and remove self-serve food (e.g. airport dining, hotel restaurants, airport lounges, etc.) 
• Airports to work with local regulators to modify procedures to minimize pat-downs and face-to-face contact 

• Travel Stakeholders to introduce enhanced cleaning procedures, ensuring that travel equipment and infrastructure are sanitized and hand sanitizing gel is readily available at high-frequency touch points along the passenger journey (e.g., at airport, on buses and planes, in hotels, etc.) 
• Travel Stakeholders to increase the use of air conditioning and effective filtration systems to keep air clean, improve air flow, reduce recirculation, and increase the fresh-air exchange 

 

PROMOTING HEALTH SCREENING 

• Travel Stakeholders to ensure staff monitor themselves for fever, cough, shortness of breath, or other symptoms of COVID-19. Staff should be encouraged to stay at home, notify work, and not return to work until cleared to do 
• Travel Stakeholders to implement non-intrusive temperature screening at entry points (e.g., airports, hotels, etc.) as efficiently as possible and following updated health guidance about its effectiveness 
• COVID-19 testing/health declaration form to be incorporated into the passenger process as soon as an effective test, validated by the medical community, has been developed  
• Airports and border crossings to utilize “one stop-security arrangements” for security and health screening of transferring passengers (e.g., mutual recognition of screening measures at the originating airport eliminates re-screening in the transfer process, thus eliminating a queuing point in the journey)