Travel: prioritise the individual traveller-based approach

The European Tourism Manifesto Alliance of 70 travel and tourism organisations have expressed their support to any effort based on scientific evidence to keep protecting and ensuring the freedom of movement and avoid a patchwork of diverging national measures within the EU/EEA, as well as internationally. It supports the European Commission’s proposal to shift to an individual traveller-based approach, in which a valid Digital COVID Certificate is sufficient to travel without additional requirements.

The Alliance is making the following calls to Member States:

  • To agree on a standard validity of the vaccination certificate.
  • To adopt the updated Council recommendations as soon as possible.
  • To swiftly adopt the EU Digital Passenger Locator Form.
  • To recognise the whole list of WHO vaccines without additional requirements for travellers coming to the EU.
  • To focus on the individual traveller-based approach and discontinue the use of The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control map as a source of information to base travel restrictions.

The EU Digital Passenger Locator Form Passenger Locator Form (PLF) is used by public health authorities to facilitate contact tracing in case travellers are exposed to an infectious disease during their travel by plane, ship (cruise/ferry), rail, bus or automobile.

Information that travellers provide in PLFs can be used by public health authorities in destination countries to rapidly contact travellers, with the goal of protecting the health of travellers’ and their contacts, as well as preventing further disease spread.

Countries that require completion of a PLF are currently using paper-based passenger locator forms or have developed national online systems. A web application for a European Digital Passenger Locator Form (dPLF) was developed to facilitate the use of PLFs during cross-border health threats. This digital format will allow for easier and more rapid data collection and exchange between stakeholders, making contact tracing more effective and efficient.

In the future, travellers entering a country that choose to use the European dPLF web application through air, maritime (cruise or ferry), or land (train, bus, car) transport means may be asked to complete a Digital Passenger Locator Form for their travel using the European dPLF web application.