In Europe, the virtual id transformation is at a turning level: The EU Virtual Id Pockets Consortium’s pilot venture has been finished, and two large-scale trials were introduced,
converting how vacationers end up their identities throughout borders, resorts, airways, ferries and virtual services and products.
The findings be offering each a lifeline and a decision to motion for the hospitality trade, which has lengthy been caught with guide passport exams and faces unwieldy rules.
At the most recent Decentralized Id Basis (DIF) Hospitality & Trip Particular Pastime Crew (SIG) consultation, trade leaders, pilot individuals and era suppliers unpacked the consequences
of the EWC pilot and explored how the approaching EU Virtual Id (EUDI) Pockets may simplify shuttle.
Their message used to be transparent: Virtual id adoption can considerably ease the traveler adventure and cut back the workload for shuttle carrier suppliers. However there are nonetheless gaps in virtual id requirements to reconcile.
A century of passport evolution reaches its virtual technology
The consultation’s presentation opened via tracing id’s evolution over a complete century, which presentations the speed of growth has sped up since governments followed virtual programs. Whilst picture ID passports remained the norm for 60 years, the previous 40 years
have observed vital growth.
EUDI Pockets is your next step: a safe, government-issued virtual id container that may retailer credentials similar to a virtual passport, riding license, fee tools and verified attributes. It’s coming in combination at a essential turning level
in id verification as call for in regulated markets—resorts, airways, banks, telcos—has overtaken that for border controls.
“One of the vital issues that I took away [is that] there may be extra use of virtual shuttle credentials for regulated markets than there are for border crossing. That’s vital,” mentioned Nick Worth, CEO of NetSys Generation and
chair of the SIG.
Lodge id exams have larger from 2.8 billion in 2015 to three billion in 2025. Airline id exams have risen from 0.9 billion to at least one.1 billion over the last decade. Border exams have declined from 1.3 billion to at least one.25 billion right through this era.
One of the vital issues that I took away [is that] there may be extra use of virtual shuttle credentials for regulated markets than there are for border crossing. That’s vital.
Nick Worth, DIF, NetSys Generation
Virtual id gives probably the most potency good points the place id exams are probably the most widespread—and that’s overwhelmingly in hospitality and aviation, now not at border crossings.
The EWC pilot: Actual visitors, actual resorts, actual knowledge
The EWC used to be one among 4 preliminary EU-funded Huge Scale Pilot initiatives (LSPs), operating from 2023 to 2025, involving 24 nations and roughly 80 private and non-private companions.
Greater than 550 public our bodies and corporations participated in the LSPs, trying out over 11 primary use circumstances in actual stipulations throughout 26 EU member states plus Norway, Iceland and Ukraine. The initiatives additionally contributed to the “Pockets Toolbox”—the technical and
governance basis for nationwide EUDI Wallets.
For the EWC pilot, hospitality become a headline use case.
“Within the scope of the large-scale pilot, we had been ready to make actual transactions with actual other people, actual cash, actual knowledge,” mentioned Laurent Loup, marketplace sector senior supervisor at Sicpa. “It’s truly, truly
thrilling.”
The pilot’s shuttle situations integrated:
- Lodge check-in (Benidorm, Spain)
- Airline check-in and boarding (Lufthansa, Finnair, Amadeus)
- Museum age verification (Buda Citadel, Budapest)
- Ferry ticketing (Rapid Ferries, Greece)
Spain: A tension take a look at for lodge id control
Spain equipped probably the most intense proving floor. Royal Decree 933/2021—which went into impact in December 2024—calls for resorts and vacation apartment suppliers to assemble 42 separate items of private knowledge from each visitor, together with id record main points,
relationships between minors and adults, fee main points and contract knowledge for the keep.
“No less than, you should fill out other details about each individual that’s within the lodge,” mentioned Leire Bilbao, managing director of Consult with Benidorm. “These days, it’s truly difficult.”
The brand new requirement creates operational bottlenecks, particularly in high-volume recreational locations the place many visitors might wish to be processed at any time.
“My very own non-public enjoy checking right into a lodge in Barcelona previous this yr, 20 plus mins to get via passport verification—depressing from starting to finish,” Worth mentioned.
The bottlenecks led to via the necessities are leading to queues, mistakes and workforce tension. There may be a regulatory possibility, with non-compliance fines starting from €100 to €30,000.
“In truth, it’s a nightmare,” Loup mentioned.
What the Eu pockets allows is in truth a brand new person enjoy.
Laurent Loup, Sicpa
In Benidorm, the EWC pilot enabled the primary EU citizen ever to test right into a lodge the use of the EUDI Pockets, automating Spain’s complicated knowledge necessities.
“What the Eu pockets allows is in truth a brand new person enjoy,” Loup mentioned, contrasting it with on-line check-in, which is “very bulky” and “calls for guide entries that create a large number of mistakes.”
The virtual pockets procedure is instant. “As soon as the person is of the same opinion, then all of the knowledge is distributed routinely, and all of the knowledge is then to be had right here in a couple of seconds,” Loup mentioned.
Lodges want PhotoID, now not simply PID
There are gaps within the requirements for private id credentials. Loup stressed out that whilst the EU’s base particular person identity knowledge (PID) accommodates best identify, surname and date of start, it lacks a singular identifier and a photograph, making it mistaken for
resorts and airways.
The Virtual Trip Credential (DTC) Kind 1, created via the Global Civil Aviation Group (ICAO), additionally falls brief as it does now not toughen selective disclosure, making it incompatible with the Normal Information Coverage Legislation. Whilst ICAO
is drafting a DTC Kind 2, it won’t cope with selective disclosure.
The EWC pilot, subsequently, leaned on PhotoID, an ISO-standard credential that accommodates all passport attributes.
“Regulated markets require a virtual credential containing passport-like attributes to uniquely determine their shoppers and agree to rules,” Loup mentioned.
Airways are transferring sooner than resorts—with IATA’s assist
The SIG dialogue highlighted various growth throughout shuttle trade sectors. Airways are extra coordinated—and farther forward—than the hospitality trade, due to the Global Air Delivery Affiliation’s (IATA) center of attention on making sure workable requirements.
“That’s some of the strengths of the airline industry. They have got a federation like IATA … riding all of the structure and the most efficient apply and lobbying in opposition to governments and different stakeholders,” Loup mentioned. “If there have been a identical group in hospitality,
this may be very favored via the group.”
“It will make sense for the resorts to paintings in combination, to talk with one voice about what they want,” Worth mentioned.
Airways, alternatively, are already prototyping biometric boarding. “That is truly some of the goals that we’re operating on at the present time, additionally at IATA,” Loup mentioned. “Use your face because the token … from the luggage examine to safety examine to boarding.”
This effort aligns with the result of IATA’s 2025 International Passenger Survey, which confirmed that:
- 78% of vacationers need a smartphone-based virtual ID + pockets + loyalty card
- 50% have already used biometrics (up from 46% in 2024)
- 74% would willingly proportion biometrics to skip queues
- Virtual pockets utilization jumped from 20% to twenty-eight% year-over-year
“Passengers wish to organize their shuttle the similar approach they organize many different facets in their lives—on their smartphones and the use of virtual ID. As enjoy grows with virtual processes from reserving to luggage declare, the message that vacationers are sending
on this yr’s GPS is obvious: They love it, and they would like extra of it. There may be crucial caveat, which is the wish to proceed construction consider, so cybersecurity stays a concern. Cybersecurity should be core to the end-to-end virtual transformation
of the way we ebook, pay, and enjoy air shuttle,” mentioned Nick Careen, IATA’s SVP of operations, protection and safety.
As PhocusWire not too long ago reported, Lufthansa and Amadeus will run EUDI Pockets exams throughout Europe starting in past due 2025, in particular analyzing passport-free
on-line check-in, computerized API knowledge transfers, biometric bag-drop and extra.
Passengers wish to organize their shuttle the similar approach they organize many different facets in their lives—on their smartphones and the use of virtual ID.
Nick Careen, IATA
The purpose is to make use of virtual id as a continuing layer around the adventure, interoperable with the EU’s nationwide pockets ecosystem.
Apple additionally not too long ago introduced its virtual ID, permitting customers to create a virtual ID in Apple Pockets the use of their U.S. passport. It’ll be implementednat 250 TSA checkpoints and makes use of passport chip studying, a safe face biometric scan, encrypted on instrument garage and selective disclosure for sharing best essential knowledge.
The virtual ID can not but substitute a passport for world shuttle, however its roll-out within the U.S. displays call for. If Apple normalizes virtual id for 1.2 billion iPhone customers, Eu resorts and airways can not find the money for to lag.
New EU pilots are beginning—and hospitality is invited
Two new EU pilots started in 2025:
- APTITUDE: covers shuttle, shipping and cellular car registration certificate
- WE BUILD: covers industry banking, bills, B2B credentials
“They’re nonetheless on the lookout for some volunteers … most definitely at the hospitality [side],” Loup mentioned right through the DIF Hospitality & Trip SIG consultation.
Alternatively, he added that the investment has already been allotted. Lodges becoming a member of now should accomplish that as “related companions.” Whilst they’d wish to quilt their very own prices, they are able to achieve affect over the following segment of pockets standardization.
Worth known 3 spaces nonetheless lacking from Europe’s virtual id framework:
- Get entry to regulate: virtual credentials to unencumber rooms, gyms and lounges
- Reservation credentials: identity-bound reserving confirmations and bills
- Traveler personal tastes/profiles: a privacy-controlled selection to loyalty knowledge silos
With out those, resorts possibility falling at the back of airways as soon as once more. “There’s so much to be informed, so much to take pleasure in—and get entangled,” Worth mentioned, urging the sphere to take part.
The criteria that may govern virtual id in Europe for the following decade are being drafted, and airways are writing extra of them than resorts.
“Let’s make certain that the hospitality and tourism elements play a complete section within the subsequent levels of the Eu adventure to Eu virtual ID,” Worth mentioned.
In Europe, the virtual id transformation is at a turning level: The EU Virtual Id Pockets Consortium’s pilot venture has been finished, and two large-scale trials were introduced,
converting how vacationers end up their identities throughout borders, resorts, airways, ferries and virtual services and products.
The findings be offering each a lifeline and a decision to motion for the hospitality trade, which has lengthy been caught with guide passport exams and faces unwieldy rules.
At the most recent Decentralized Id Basis (DIF) Hospitality & Trip Particular Pastime Crew (SIG) consultation, trade leaders, pilot individuals and era suppliers unpacked the consequences
of the EWC pilot and explored how the approaching EU Virtual Id (EUDI) Pockets may simplify shuttle.
Their message used to be transparent: Virtual id adoption can considerably ease the traveler adventure and cut back the workload for shuttle carrier suppliers. However there are nonetheless gaps in virtual id requirements to reconcile.
A century of passport evolution reaches its virtual technology
The consultation’s presentation opened via tracing id’s evolution over a complete century, which presentations the speed of growth has sped up since governments followed virtual programs. Whilst picture ID passports remained the norm for 60 years, the previous 40 years
have observed vital growth.
EUDI Pockets is your next step: a safe, government-issued virtual id container that may retailer credentials similar to a virtual passport, riding license, fee tools and verified attributes. It’s coming in combination at a essential turning level
in id verification as call for in regulated markets—resorts, airways, banks, telcos—has overtaken that for border controls.
“One of the vital issues that I took away [is that] there may be extra use of virtual shuttle credentials for regulated markets than there are for border crossing. That’s vital,” mentioned Nick Worth, CEO of NetSys Generation and
chair of the SIG.
Lodge id exams have larger from 2.8 billion in 2015 to three billion in 2025. Airline id exams have risen from 0.9 billion to at least one.1 billion over the last decade. Border exams have declined from 1.3 billion to at least one.25 billion right through this era.
One of the vital issues that I took away [is that] there may be extra use of virtual shuttle credentials for regulated markets than there are for border crossing. That’s vital.
Nick Worth, DIF, NetSys Generation
Virtual id gives probably the most potency good points the place id exams are probably the most widespread—and that’s overwhelmingly in hospitality and aviation, now not at border crossings.
The EWC pilot: Actual visitors, actual resorts, actual knowledge
The EWC used to be one among 4 preliminary EU-funded Huge Scale Pilot initiatives (LSPs), operating from 2023 to 2025, involving 24 nations and roughly 80 private and non-private companions.
Greater than 550 public our bodies and corporations participated in the LSPs, trying out over 11 primary use circumstances in actual stipulations throughout 26 EU member states plus Norway, Iceland and Ukraine. The initiatives additionally contributed to the “Pockets Toolbox”—the technical and
governance basis for nationwide EUDI Wallets.
For the EWC pilot, hospitality become a headline use case.
“Within the scope of the large-scale pilot, we had been ready to make actual transactions with actual other people, actual cash, actual knowledge,” mentioned Laurent Loup, marketplace sector senior supervisor at Sicpa. “It’s truly, truly
thrilling.”
The pilot’s shuttle situations integrated:
- Lodge check-in (Benidorm, Spain)
- Airline check-in and boarding (Lufthansa, Finnair, Amadeus)
- Museum age verification (Buda Citadel, Budapest)
- Ferry ticketing (Rapid Ferries, Greece)
Spain: A tension take a look at for lodge id control
Spain equipped probably the most intense proving floor. Royal Decree 933/2021—which went into impact in December 2024—calls for resorts and vacation apartment suppliers to assemble 42 separate items of private knowledge from each visitor, together with id record main points,
relationships between minors and adults, fee main points and contract knowledge for the keep.
“No less than, you should fill out other details about each individual that’s within the lodge,” mentioned Leire Bilbao, managing director of Consult with Benidorm. “These days, it’s truly difficult.”
The brand new requirement creates operational bottlenecks, particularly in high-volume recreational locations the place many visitors might wish to be processed at any time.
“My very own non-public enjoy checking right into a lodge in Barcelona previous this yr, 20 plus mins to get via passport verification—depressing from starting to finish,” Worth mentioned.
The bottlenecks led to via the necessities are leading to queues, mistakes and workforce tension. There may be a regulatory possibility, with non-compliance fines starting from €100 to €30,000.
“In truth, it’s a nightmare,” Loup mentioned.
What the Eu pockets allows is in truth a brand new person enjoy.
Laurent Loup, Sicpa
In Benidorm, the EWC pilot enabled the primary EU citizen ever to test right into a lodge the use of the EUDI Pockets, automating Spain’s complicated knowledge necessities.
“What the Eu pockets allows is in truth a brand new person enjoy,” Loup mentioned, contrasting it with on-line check-in, which is “very bulky” and “calls for guide entries that create a large number of mistakes.”
The virtual pockets procedure is instant. “As soon as the person is of the same opinion, then all of the knowledge is distributed routinely, and all of the knowledge is then to be had right here in a couple of seconds,” Loup mentioned.
Lodges want PhotoID, now not simply PID
There are gaps within the requirements for private id credentials. Loup stressed out that whilst the EU’s base particular person identity knowledge (PID) accommodates best identify, surname and date of start, it lacks a singular identifier and a photograph, making it mistaken for
resorts and airways.
The Virtual Trip Credential (DTC) Kind 1, created via the Global Civil Aviation Group (ICAO), additionally falls brief as it does now not toughen selective disclosure, making it incompatible with the Normal Information Coverage Legislation. Whilst ICAO
is drafting a DTC Kind 2, it won’t cope with selective disclosure.
The EWC pilot, subsequently, leaned on PhotoID, an ISO-standard credential that accommodates all passport attributes.
“Regulated markets require a virtual credential containing passport-like attributes to uniquely determine their shoppers and agree to rules,” Loup mentioned.
Airways are transferring sooner than resorts—with IATA’s assist
The SIG dialogue highlighted various growth throughout shuttle trade sectors. Airways are extra coordinated—and farther forward—than the hospitality trade, due to the Global Air Delivery Affiliation’s (IATA) center of attention on making sure workable requirements.
“That’s some of the strengths of the airline industry. They have got a federation like IATA … riding all of the structure and the most efficient apply and lobbying in opposition to governments and different stakeholders,” Loup mentioned. “If there have been a identical group in hospitality,
this may be very favored via the group.”
“It will make sense for the resorts to paintings in combination, to talk with one voice about what they want,” Worth mentioned.
Airways, alternatively, are already prototyping biometric boarding. “That is truly some of the goals that we’re operating on at the present time, additionally at IATA,” Loup mentioned. “Use your face because the token … from the luggage examine to safety examine to boarding.”
This effort aligns with the result of IATA’s 2025 International Passenger Survey, which confirmed that:
- 78% of vacationers need a smartphone-based virtual ID + pockets + loyalty card
- 50% have already used biometrics (up from 46% in 2024)
- 74% would willingly proportion biometrics to skip queues
- Virtual pockets utilization jumped from 20% to twenty-eight% year-over-year
“Passengers wish to organize their shuttle the similar approach they organize many different facets in their lives—on their smartphones and the use of virtual ID. As enjoy grows with virtual processes from reserving to luggage declare, the message that vacationers are sending
on this yr’s GPS is obvious: They love it, and they would like extra of it. There may be crucial caveat, which is the wish to proceed construction consider, so cybersecurity stays a concern. Cybersecurity should be core to the end-to-end virtual transformation
of the way we ebook, pay, and enjoy air shuttle,” mentioned Nick Careen, IATA’s SVP of operations, protection and safety.
As PhocusWire not too long ago reported, Lufthansa and Amadeus will run EUDI Pockets exams throughout Europe starting in past due 2025, in particular analyzing passport-free
on-line check-in, computerized API knowledge transfers, biometric bag-drop and extra.
Passengers wish to organize their shuttle the similar approach they organize many different facets in their lives—on their smartphones and the use of virtual ID.
Nick Careen, IATA
The purpose is to make use of virtual id as a continuing layer around the adventure, interoperable with the EU’s nationwide pockets ecosystem.
Apple additionally not too long ago introduced its virtual ID, permitting customers to create a virtual ID in Apple Pockets the use of their U.S. passport. It’ll be implementednat 250 TSA checkpoints and makes use of passport chip studying, a safe face biometric scan, encrypted on instrument garage and selective disclosure for sharing best essential knowledge.
The virtual ID can not but substitute a passport for world shuttle, however its roll-out within the U.S. displays call for. If Apple normalizes virtual id for 1.2 billion iPhone customers, Eu resorts and airways can not find the money for to lag.
New EU pilots are beginning—and hospitality is invited
Two new EU pilots started in 2025:
- APTITUDE: covers shuttle, shipping and cellular car registration certificate
- WE BUILD: covers industry banking, bills, B2B credentials
“They’re nonetheless on the lookout for some volunteers … most definitely at the hospitality [side],” Loup mentioned right through the DIF Hospitality & Trip SIG consultation.
Alternatively, he added that the investment has already been allotted. Lodges becoming a member of now should accomplish that as “related companions.” Whilst they’d wish to quilt their very own prices, they are able to achieve affect over the following segment of pockets standardization.
Worth known 3 spaces nonetheless lacking from Europe’s virtual id framework:
- Get entry to regulate: virtual credentials to unencumber rooms, gyms and lounges
- Reservation credentials: identity-bound reserving confirmations and bills
- Traveler personal tastes/profiles: a privacy-controlled selection to loyalty knowledge silos
With out those, resorts possibility falling at the back of airways as soon as once more. “There’s so much to be informed, so much to take pleasure in—and get entangled,” Worth mentioned, urging the sphere to take part.
The criteria that may govern virtual id in Europe for the following decade are being drafted, and airways are writing extra of them than resorts.
“Let’s make certain that the hospitality and tourism elements play a complete section within the subsequent levels of the Eu adventure to Eu virtual ID,” Worth mentioned.
