Digital vaccine passports: how blockchain and QR codes can revive international travel if regulation can catch up

Before the Covid-19 pandemic forced countries to close their borders, Peggy Chung was a frequent traveller. The 52-year-old Hong Kong-based food merchant travelled within Asia regularly and sometimes to Europe and South America to meet clients.

While the pandemic has not had a seismic impact on her business, her life is not as exciting as it used to be. “[It has been] very boring,” Chung said. “I used to have fun meeting my clients, but now I’m just stuck at home.”

A number of digital health passes – sometimes called vaccine passports – are now emerging around the world to help people like Peggy Chung return to her days as a global trotter and bring the world closer to the pre-Covid-19 days when travel was regular and essential.

Worldwide, the UN World Tourism Organization called 2020 the “worst year in tourism history,” with international tourist arrivals dropping by 1 billion, representing an estimated loss in business of US$1.3 trillion.

Last year, Hong Kong recorded only 3.5 million visitor arrivals, a 94 per cent drop from two years ago in 2018, when the city received a record high of 65.1 million tourists, according to figures released by the Hong Kong Tourism Commission. In the first five months of 2020, the occupancy rate of hotels in Hong Kong was 38 per cent, 52 percentage points lower than the same period in 2019.

If the world economy is to get back into shape, it needs travel. But such a restart is challenging given a situation in which a multitude of government departments and organisations from different countries are issuing documents in different languages based on different standards on pieces of paper that are easily forged.