'We need to reimagine what the travel experience needs to be'
October 8, 2026·Updated 10/09/2026·3 min3 min read
At the World Travel & Tourism Council summit in Malta, panellists argued that paper travel documents feel increasingly outdated as biometrics mature, and that the real barriers to adoption lie elsewhere, in governance, coordination and the persistence of legacy processes, particularly in aviation.
“The first modern passport was invented in 1915 during World War I, and we're still using it today, which seems so strange,” said Jonathan Samuels, a broadcaster at Sky News, opening the discussion.
Paul Griffiths, chief executive of Dubai Airport, said the technology already exists to deliver a near-continuous, stop-free journey.
He added: “A lot of airports are actually still sticking to those legacy processes and we need to reimagine what the travel experience needs to be just like Amazon and Uber and eBay have done in their respective industries.”
Dubai’s approach, he suggested, shows how a frictionless experience can be engineered when systems work together.
In the US, officials pointed to large-scale deployments of facial biometrics.
Diane Sabatino, executive assistant commissioner at US Customs and Border Protection, said the agency has put biometrics at the centre of identity checks at ports of entry and that “from 2016 we've now biometrically confirmed over a billion travellers at ports of entry in the United States.”
She also forecast that international arrivals could be “within the next 3 to 5 years seamless for everyone at least in that space.”
The cruise sector, which moves thousands of passengers across multiple countries on a single itinerary, was cited as a useful proving ground.
Nikos Mertzanidis, executive director at CLIA in Europe, said: “cruise is really a good test case for the authorities because the information about the passengers is transmitted earlier.
“So at least 24 hours in advance they get the crew manifest with all the information, the passport information and everything.
“A lot of the border control checks and authorisations can be done in advance by the border control authorities and then they can focus on really the passengers that they need to maybe check or the the persons who need to control.”
Speakers said aviation’s difficulty in fully embracing biometrics stems from siloed deployments that do not interoperate, forcing travellers to re-enrol and repeatedly present identity at each step.
They also cited a deep attachment to vertical, legacy processes and a lack of public–private coordination to link systems end to end.
Andrea Alori, a partner at Bain, argued that the issue is no longer technical.
“Technology is not the problem. The problem is about governance is about coordination is about interoperability of the various systems,” Alori said.
“And again technology can help us a lot but also the willing the willingness of the parties both the public sector but as the strength and the commitment of the private sector can make this change.”
To unlock progress, panellists called for simpler technical architectures, clearer rules on data use and transparency to build trust, and the adoption of a unified standard.
As Griffiths put it: “We've sent money across continents in between different countries for decades using the IBAN system and let's face it, if we're entrusting banks with your money, why are we not entrusting travel organizations with that ability to just share a token to verify identity?”
Sabatino, meanwhile, stressed that CBP “are not looking to capitalize on the economic value of that data,” framing data collection as strictly for identity verification.
