These will be the most popular IT solutions for the travel industry in 2022

While travel is expected to increase in 2022, forecasters predict the level of travel and tourism will remain 30% below 2019 levels.

Nonetheless, new restrictions continue to arise due to COVID-related concerns and complicate the travel industry more than ever. As physical conferences and expositions appear in greater numbers, business travel is expected to grow more than leisure travel but will remain below 2019 values.

This article will discuss how these trends will affect travel and what essential IT solutions will the travel industry have. With yet more documentation required of travellers, it’s sure that document scanners will play an ever more crucial role in facilitating travel.

As the supplier of some of the most sophisticated scanning technology, Adaptive Recognition will continue to contribute strongly to the travel business.

New restrictions in Europe

While the exact date for implementation is not certain after the postponement of the original May 2022 date, the EES (European Entry/Exit System) will almost certainly be put into effect at some point in 2022. Once the new system comes into effect, “third-country” travellers crossing an external EU border must have their biometric data – fingerprint and facial image – recorded alongside information from their passports, visas, and digital COVID certificates.

The EES may be the most challenging requirement in the world, but there are other rules in other places that will further complicate the border-crossing process. Some individual European countries have their own demands for documentation of COVID status.

This means that a border crossing without an electronic document scanner that can learn to read unfamiliar documents is already obsolete. Crossing a border where agents must manually handle all this documentation is likely to be a long process. Document scanners and other electronic aids are becoming essential IT solutions for the travel industry. Adaptive Recognition’s Combo Smart Kiosk Scanner and other document scanners are fast, simple to use, and include multi-step checks to verify a document’s authenticity.

Hotel registration desks

Hotels, especially those frequented by an international clientele, must collect significant amounts of data from each arriving guest. Doing this manually takes several minutes per person, and manual data entry always opens the possibility of mistyped data. Additionally, many computer keyboards don’t allow easy recording of some foreign-language characters.

In the case of hotels, a perfect IT solution for the travel industry is Adaptive Recognition’s Combo Scan ID and Passport Scanner. It records a guest’s data in just two seconds, and it’s accurate even when the names and characters may be unfamiliar to the clerk behind the desk.

Who’s Traveling?

The majority of passengers, more and more, are in the age range of 18-30. This generation is much more receptive to IT solutions for the travel industry, just as they are to everything electronic. They know only a world where nearly every individual has one or more personal computers of some sort. However, even older travellers gradually learn to accommodate life with electronic gadgets.

Besides the practical need for efficiency at border crossings, these trends make it easier to implement IT solutions for the travel industry, such as ID scanners that help grease the wheels of travel.

How do younger travellers change the picture?

There’s a sea of changes happening that comes with millennials and business people.

Traditionally, most people would buy a product if it served their purpose, without much concern about who made it or sold it to them. The under-30 crowd, however, wants to know that any company they do business with authentically adheres to their self-description and pronouncements and is environmentally conscious.

Adaptive Recognition is just that. Go to their About page to learn about the company and its culture. You can be sure the IT solutions for the travel industry offered by Adaptive Recognition are produced and sold with a commitment to serve the industry and its customers with integrity. Additionally, data privacy and environmental consciousness are essential features of their culture.

Other applications of ID scanners that assist businesses

Banks, retail merchants, and other travel-related businesses also benefit from electronic ID scanners to identify who’s in their place of business. An interesting example of this type of application is the SM Duty Free shop in Seoul City at Korea’s Incheon Airport.

Duty-free shops must sell their tax-free goods only to international travellers with valid boarding passes. To prove to tax authorities that they comply with this requirement, they must maintain and report the details of each transaction. With manual logging, this meant a cumbersome task; in the case of SM Duty Free, this resulted in slow customer experience and many administrative hours spent with record-keeping and submitting reports.

Using electronic ID scanners, the shop automated the entire process, including reporting, which now happens immediately upon completion of each transaction. In addition to that, electronic passport readers can be used for age verification during alcohol and tobacco sales and automatic ID authentication.

Travel, both for business and recreational purposes, is forecast to increase in 2022 but will probably remain well below pre-pandemic levels. As travellers return to the roads, rails, skies, and waters, they’ll find significant differences from 2019. There are now requirements for more visas, vaccine certificates, biometric ID checks, etc., than there were in the past.

An efficient flow of travellers requires IT solutions for the travel industry. Any travel check-in point without an electronic passport and ID scanners will almost surely be choked with long lines unless it’s a remote spot that sees only a few people a day.

To learn more about these aids and discuss your ID-checking needs, explore Adaptive Recognition’s website. The company has been a leader in this niche since 2000 and offers some of the most sophisticated tools in the industry.