Travel Struggles to Scale Self-Sovereign Identity

The travel workflow of signing up for various disconnected portals—and repeating this process multiple times across airfare, hotel, and other bookings—has long frustrated both travelers and industry firms.

Self-sovereign identity (SSI), a concept where the traveler controls their profile data and can securely share it with various stakeholders, solves this problem, but adoption lags as companies weigh the costs of replacing fragmented infrastructure with uncertain returns.

To be sure, industry firms—including global distribution systems, corporate booking tools and hotel chains—know that multiple sign-on processes are clunky and increase data-breach risks. But until players agree on shared standards, incentives and integration models, adoption is unlikely to accelerate in the near term, industry analysts say.

"We’re kind of at the tipping point when the technology is certainly well able to support SSI," but commercial incentives will drive adoption, said Greg Abbott, head of travel and hospitality at DataArt. The key questions—who pays, who owns it and who sets the rules—are unresolved.

Business Impact

Nick Price, founder of Netsys Technology and co-chair of DIF’s Hospitality & Travel SIG, said SSI gives users more control, enhanced security and greater flexibility in how they interact with travel services.

Providers and travelers gain a trusted way to identify themselves and can communicate directly, avoiding fragmented email or SMS alerts. It also opens the door to rethinking loyalty programs, moving from brand-based models to destination-focused ones, he said.

In a corporate program, SSI could help suppliers identify the most valuable travelers within a program and target them directly within that program. For example, an airline that currently gives out a collection of upgrade coupons to a travel manager to distribute at the end of the year could instead direct those coupons to frequent travelers or executive travelers.

The State of SSI in Travel

European Union regulation is a major driver for global adoption. Under EU regulation 2024/1183, all member states must have at least one EU digital identity wallet ready for citizens by November 2026. The digital identity wallet is a secure mobile application that lets citizens and residents store, manage and share official identity data and credentials online and offline, under their control.

"Europe is driving this change" with the new digital wallet requirements, Gillian Jones, senior business development manager at Condatis, said in an interview with PhocusWire at the Phocuswright Europe 2025 conference. "Brands are going to have to get out of their own way in the coming months, in the coming years, because this is happening, and what we can't do is have this…outdated attitude to owning a customer."

Others point to early success with pilot projects. At Phocuswright Europe, Vikas Bhola, CEO of Neoke, a travel-focused digital ID provider, said the company was involved in a cross-border SSI proof of concept involving Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong Airport and Narita Airport in Japan. The pilot showed how SSI could streamline passenger processing by reducing wait times from 30 minutes to just three minutes, without any document checks.

"From an airline to an airport, journey from an OTA to a hotel, from a border to a destination, all of those require some level of checkpoints and understanding who you are, and I think that's where this whole flip of the model will enable that true connected experience," Bhola said.

Bhola also acknowledged efforts by the International Air Transport Association and International Civil Aviation Organization toward the development of standards that support interoperable SSI systems. 

"Combining that with the work that is happening in the EU, I think that an interoperable private layer is in sight," he said.

Scaling Hurdles

While Europe leads on digital identity, scaling the model is difficult due to limited global interoperability, analysts said. 

Governments need to decide if or when they'll build interoperable SSI credentials with European digital identity wallets to help streamline travel workflows. Jurisdictions like Bhutan, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain are developing or deploying digital identity frameworks with elements of self-sovereign identity, particularly for cross-border travel, but it’s unclear how these platforms would integrate with other systems. 

Other geographies grapple with fragmented authority. In the U.S., for example, adoption is complicated by the potential for multiple digital identity issuers, since driver’s licenses are handled at the state level, said Price. 

Gee Mann, founder and CEO of Travlr ID, highlighted the lack of an open platform as a key challenge, where key players operate on different standards and specifications.

Others point to resistance among travel industry stakeholders, particularly those clinging to legacy views of the customer profile and how to monetize it. Traditionally, companies have seen themselves as the sole custodians of customer data, using it as a competitive advantage rather than participating in a more open ecosystem where travelers control and share their information more freely, said Jones.
Despite these challenges, an "awful lot of people" are working on solutions, said Price.

"We're not quite at takeoff speed [for adoption] but we're sort of cruising down the runway," he said. "I would say we're probably two to three years away before we really start to see mass adoption at scale."