Technology today is more advanced than ever before, enabling new opportunities for efficiency and personalization in the travel experience. Yet at the same time, data privacy and traveler security demands are increasing, while infrastructure cannot keep pace with the growth in the number of travelers, which IATA predicts will nearly double to 7.8 billion by 2036.

One solution for this complexity could be digital identity.

That was the message from Laurent Conjat, traveler ID innovation manager at Amadeus, during a presentation August 6 at the Global Business Travel Association convention in Chicago.

Conjat says digital identity management can create a frictionless yet secure travel environment that is consistent across touch points, from airlines to hotels to car rentals and more.

“Today, each travel actor is acting as if they were not expecting you because the world is siloed,” Conjat says.

“This creates repetitive and time-consuming ID checks across the entire chain.”

A variety of entities are developing digital identity solutions, including organizations such as IATA, the World Economic Forum, ICAO, government agencies and private companies.

“It is quite a complex ecosystem, and it is fragmented but we can start to see some convergence,” Conjat says.

The conditions for development are improving, he says, citing IATA figures that by 2023 85% of mobile devices will be equipped with biometric sensors and 70% of airlines and airports will have made major investments in identity management platforms.

Once digital identity is more widely established, travelers would be able to establish an account and then share their personal data in advance with different travel entities as needed from one trip to the next.

“This is a fundamental change in the way we are operating today,” Conjat says.

“Today airlines are claiming the ownership of the data, of the customers, or maybe the travel agency does, but in fact the reality is the traveler owns their own data. The problem is they don’t have a tool today to say I am happy to share this and this data to this travel actor. The idea is to create that tool ... the capability for a user to manage their data and decide what to share with whom.”

The systems would link that identity to every entity in travelers' itineraries, so as travelers arrive at each of those points they're instantly recognized and cleared to proceed through automated communication with their mobile devices, whether that is security at an airport, boarding a plane or picking up a rental car.

Conjat says digital identity also would improve things such as risk management and compliance for companies and it would enable opportunities for TMCs to upsell services and build in more personalization.