IATA
has opened an online portal giving consumers, travel agents and
others access to information on changing international travel
requirements and restrictions.
Steve Lott,
communications director for IATA in Washington, said the data was
part of its TIM/Timatic System, which keeps track of and updates
information on requirements for travel documents imposed by
immigration authorities around the world, including current health,
passport and visa requirements.
Lott said there are
about 14,000 changes to the requirements noted and updated by the
airlines' documentation database annually. The service is available
to organizations for a small annual fee and is free to individual
travelers.
The new portal,
located at www.iatatravelcentre.com, is part of what the
organization calls its Simplifying the Business campaign, which
also includes its drive to eliminate paper tickets from the airline
reservations system this year.
The portal enables
other Web sites to offer a link to the information, including
travel businesses, and so far, since the portal was launched in
mid-December, 319 referring sites have been directing traffic
there.
"In particular we are
targeting online travel agencies, which our airline members have
identified as a focus area," Lott said in an e-mail
exchange.
"Unlike traditional
travel agencies, online travel agencies do not normally provide
their customers with this key information, resulting in a higher
proportion of their customers arriving at the airport without
correct travel documents."
He said the
information access "will have an immediate impact benefiting the
online travel agencies, airlines and most of all the
passengers."
Projection: 2 million served in '08
IATA has projected
that it would assist as many as 2 million travelers during 2008
with passport, visa and health advice.
Lott said the
association would continue to promote links to the site at travel
agencies and travel organizations internationally.
"While most of these
links are straightforward referrals from their Web sites, we are
currently working on implementing intelligent links with embedded
passenger itinerary details so that this information is
prepopulated in the IATA Travel Centre inquiry screen for customer
ease of use," Lott said.
Most documentation
issues are found during airline check-in, Lott noted, but the
association estimated that some 35,000 flyers are turned back at
their destination each year because of faulty
documentation.
Although airlines and
travel agents assist international travelers with information,
travelers are ultimately responsible for their own travel
documents, the association noted.
IATA said in some
cases fines by immigration authorities can amount to thousands of
dollars over improper documents. They estimated documentation
issues cost the travel industry itself $200 million a
year.
To
contact reporter Dan Luzadder, send e-mail to [email protected].