How tech is making travel more hygienic

  • Hygiene is a key decision-maker for today’s travelers
  • Travel companies that embrace tech to boost their cleanliness levels will be well positioned for success
  • Contact-free travel is on the rise

With 60% of Americans saying that hygiene is the most important factor in choosing a travel company1, it’s arguable that travel stocks‘ performance could depend on how well providers meet these demands. Visible cleaning schedules and hi-tech hygiene practices are almost non-negotiable for success today.

“It’s evident that airlines, airports, and lodging providers must address safety and cleanliness as part of their core brand offering,” says Bill Kircos, a marketing vice president at Honeywell2.

Alongside increasing transparency around health practices and publicizing their cleanliness standards, airlines, hotels, cruise ships, tourist attractions, and other travel companies are rushing to apply technology to boost their hygiene ratings.

Contact-free is (almost) germ-free

A combination of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, fast connections powered by edge computing and 5G, proprietary apps, and near-field communication (NFC) is making it possible for travel providers to offer a range of contactless interactions.

Airlines and airports increasingly enable contact-free check in and boarding experiences, with 64% of airports and 82% of airlines saying they intend to offer self-boarding gates by 20233. NEC provides contactless solutions that include check in and bag drop, QR codes for seamless payments at duty-free and airport eateries, facial recognition and phone scanning for entrance to VIP lounges; and frictionless contact-free boarding4.

Singapore Airlines already invites travelers to print their own luggage tags by scanning a QR code on their mobile boarding pass5, and at Istanbul Airport, customers verify their identity through smart security cameras, present digital boarding passes, see security bots scan their hand baggage, and show biometric passports to automated border control gates6.

It’s a similar story at hotels and cruise ships. Passengers with Royal Caribbean can check in by taking a selfie and scanning their passport7. MSC Cruise has a self-service check in process that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to guide passengers through it8, and hotels like Marriott’s Moxy in New York City have digital portals in the lobby that verify guests’ identity, deliver their room key, and direct them to their rooms9.

Contact-free stretches beyond arrival and check in. On some airlines, passengers can use their phone to control in-flight entertainment, and order duty-free and food and drink though the airline app10. On ships run by some of the best cruise lines , guests receive smart wristbands that unlock their cabins, let them reserve spa services or restaurant tables, and support contactless payments11. In hotels, your smartphone can serve as your room key12, the hotel app provides information about room service, and voice-operated systems adjust heating and air conditioning13.

Disinfection and air filtration

Tech offers travel companies faster, more thorough ways to clean shared items and public spaces, like antibacterial foggers, UV-light cleaning bots, and electrostatic sprays that attract and capture viruses. Airlines and cruise ship companies, in particular, are aware of the need to demonstrate hygiene levels. “We know that our customers are more conscious than ever about hygiene,” says Anil Jain, engineering chief at Air India Express. “We need to be proactive.14

Nine airlines thus far adopted a Honeywell system that fills the cabin with UV light at an intensity high enough to kill almost all viruses both on surfaces and in airborne droplets. Honeywell and Boeing offer handheld disinfection wands for hard-to-clean areas; Safran SA is working on sprays that resist and kill germ particles; and Boeing is developing touchless toilets that respond to the wave of a hand.15

Airlines also need to overcome anxieties about breathing in germs in the small, enclosed space of a plane; over a third of flyers say they are concerned about recirculated cabin air16. Most air travel companies have introduced or upgraded cabin air filtration systems. Qatar Airways, for example, introduced filtration systems that use HEPA filters to capture pathogens in recirculated air17.

Additionally, cruise ships, airports, train stations, attractions, and more are mining data from IoT devices to analyze usage levels and crowd density, enabling them to optimize cleaning schedules so that high-traffic places are cleaned more frequently, and cleaning takes place when areas are relatively empty.

Fewer crowds mean less infection

In our post-covid world, being crammed together with other travelers isn’t just unpleasant, it’s potentially dangerous. To that end, travel companies are doing their best to remove the need to queue. At the Royal Caribbean, passengers can choose their preferred boarding time18; digital check in at hotels means guests don’t have to wait in the lobby; and connected data systems in airports allow airlines to call passengers individually for boarding19

The rise of wearables could help cut bottlenecks in airports, train stations, and the entrance to attractions. In time, smart wristbands that hold the wearer’s passport, insurance details, health records, and itinerary could be scanned automatically as passengers pass through connected gates, serving as a “fast pass” that removes the need to wait for details to be checked.20

Different travel players apply various means to track the density of crowds and redirect travelers to areas with more space. Cruise lines like Viking Cruises use wearables to track passenger movements21; at Singapore Changi airport, roaming robots alert people when they are standing too close together22; and Orlando airport in the US has electronic signs announcing the size of the crowd waiting at an airport gate23. Travel startup app WishTrip uses smartphone GPS signals to map the number people at a particular site, alert staff about overcrowding, and send push notifications to visitors to move to quieter areas24.

Venice uses cameras originally intended to deter crime to track tourist movements across the city. “We know minute by minute how many people are passing and where they are going,” said Simone Venturini, Venice tourism official25, while in the UK, Beach Check UK mobile app tells users how busy different beaches are so they can choose one that’s more sparsely attended.

For travel stocks, cleanliness is next to profitability

With health and safety playing such a prominent part in consumers’ travel decision-making, it makes sense for investors looking for travel stocks to buy, to check how well the company is applying tech to raise their hygiene levels. Airline stocks, hotel stocks, and cruise stocks prices could all be affected if customer perceptions of their cleanliness levels cause revenues to falter.

For those who prefer not to spend time researching such details before investing in the travel sector, a travel ETF like CRUZ from Defiance ETFs allows you to spread your investment across a number of promising travel stocks among a range of travel niches and audiences , helping reduce your exposure to risk.


1 “Airlines Step Up Hygiene to Keep Covid Out of the Air” January 19, 2022 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-19/airlines-step-up-plane-hygiene-and-safety-measures-to-keep-covid-out

2 “Airlines Step Up Hygiene to Keep Covid Out of the Air” January 19, 2022 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-19/airlines-step-up-plane-hygiene-and-safety-measures-to-keep-covid-out

3 “Contactless travel has arrived: from pandemic experimentation to long-term innovation” May 18, 2021 https://www.ibm.com/blogs/industries/contactless-travel-airlines-airports-pandemic-customer-experience/

4  “Transforming the Way We Fly” https://www.nec.com/en/global/solutions/safety/aviation/experience/index.html

5 “How Singapore Airlines Uses Tech to Transform Each Step of the Traveler Journey” April 27, 2021 https://skift.com/2021/04/27/singapore-airlines-using-technology-transform-traveler-journey-covid-19/

6 “Contactless travel has arrived: from pandemic experimentation to long-term innovation” May 18, 2021 https://www.ibm.com/blogs/industries/contactless-travel-airlines-airports-pandemic-customer-experience/

7 “5 WAYS ROYAL CARIBBEAN’S APP CHANGES CRUISING” March 11, 2021 https://www.royalcaribbean.com/blog/5-ways-royal-caribbeans-app-changes-cruising/

8 How Technology Will Help Cruise Lines Restart Operations Post-Pandemic” https://www.easemytrip.com/blog/future-of-cruise-post-pandemic

9 “Hotels will never be the same” June 25, 2021 https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22543924/hotels-qr-codes-contactless-check-in-robots-chatbots-sanitation

10 “How Singapore Airlines Uses Tech to Transform Each Step of the Traveler Journey” April 27, 2021 https://skift.com/2021/04/27/singapore-airlines-using-technology-transform-traveler-journey-covid-19/

11 “What You Need To Know About The Internet Of Things And Cruise Ships” September 27, 2021 https://www.tracesafe.io/newsroom/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-internet-of-things-and-cruise-ships

12 “Hilton Guests Can Now Open Their Door Via Their Smartphone” August 13, 2015 https://www.travelpulse.com/news/hotels-and-resorts/hilton-guests-can-now-open-their-door-via-their-smartphone.html

13  “Hotels will never be the same” June 25, 2021 https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22543924/hotels-qr-codes-contactless-check-in-robots-chatbots-sanitation

14 “Airlines Step Up Hygiene to Keep Covid Out of the Air” January 19, 2022 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-19/airlines-step-up-plane-hygiene-and-safety-measures-to-keep-covid-out

15 “Airlines Step Up Hygiene to Keep Covid Out of the Air” January 19, 2022 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-19/airlines-step-up-plane-hygiene-and-safety-measures-to-keep-covid-out

16 “Airlines Step Up Hygiene to Keep Covid Out of the Air” January 19, 2022 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-19/airlines-step-up-plane-hygiene-and-safety-measures-to-keep-covid-out

17 “5 pandemic tech innovations that will change travel forever” November 3, 2021 https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/5-pandemic-tech-innovations-that-will-change-travel-forever

18 “5 WAYS ROYAL CARIBBEAN’S APP CHANGES CRUISING” March 11, 2021 https://www.royalcaribbean.com/blog/5-ways-royal-caribbeans-app-changes-cruising/

19  “Transforming the Way We Fly” https://www.nec.com/en/global/solutions/safety/aviation/experience/index.html

20 “Proactive tech strategies for airlines to succeed after COVID-19” May 4, 2021 https://www.fastcompany.com/90633012/proactive-tech-strategies-for-airlines-to-succeed-after-covid-19

21 “What You Need To Know About The Internet Of Things And Cruise Ships” September 27, 2021 https://www.tracesafe.io/newsroom/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-internet-of-things-and-cruise-ships

22 “‘Dystopian world’: Singapore patrol robots stoke fears of surveillance state” October 6, 2021 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/06/dystopian-world-singapore-patrol-robots-stoke-fears-of-surveillance-state

23 “Orlando airport debuts high-tech crowd-monitoring system over holiday season” December 17, 2020 https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-ne-orlando-international-airport-debuts-crowd-monitoring-system-20201217-itu5qafhurcdxccaelzx5c3nhu-story.html

24 “8 smart technologies to help us get traveling again” February 4, 2021 https://www.israel21c.org/8-smart-technologies-to-help-us-get-traveling-again/

25 “5 pandemic tech innovations that will change travel forever” November 3, 2021 https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/5-pandemic-tech-innovations-that-will-change-travel-forever