Travellers across Europe are willing to store their travel health data electronically if it means they can travel sooner, according to new research.

Amadeus interviewed 9,055 people from France, Germany, Spain and the UK as well as the US, UAE, Russia, India and Singapore who had travelled?abroad?in the last 18 months for its Rebuild Travel Digital Health Survey, released this week.

More than two-thirds of UK and Spanish travellers (68 per cent) would be willing to use a digital health passport so they could travel sooner. In France, the figure was 59 per cent and in Germany 57 per cent.

However, the appeal of such passports in the long term is less certain.

When travellers were asked whether they would be happy for a digital health passport to be used at all times when travelling, 45 per cent of UK respondents said they would, against 40 per cent in Spain, 39 per cent in Germany and 33 per cent in France.

Almost one in five (19 per cent) of travellers from France said they would not be comfortable using a digital health passport for future travel under any circumstance; this figure was 18 per cent in Germany, 10 per cent in Spain and 8 per cent in the UK.

However, French business travellers were far less concerned about digital health passports than leisure travellers ¨C 12 per cent said they would not be comfortable using a digital health passport under any circumstances against 21 per cent for the latter.

On a global level, just under three quarters (74 per cent) of travellers surveyed would be willing to store their travel health data electronically if it enabled them to pass through the airport faster with fewer face-to-face interactions.

The survey also found that travellers are concerned about security and privacy of digital health passports.

In Britain, just over a third of travellers said they had concerns around data storage and their personal information being hacked (36 per cent). However, British business travellers were less concerned (25 per cent) about security risks with personal information being hacked than leisure travellers (38 per cent).

Some 40 per cent of German travellers said they had concerns around a lack of transparency and control over where the data is shared.

Decius Valmorbida, president of travel at Amadeus, said,?¡°There is no doubt that Covid-19 will continue to shape the way we travel for the months ahead, just as it influences so many other areas of our lives. Yet while there are still uncertainties, research like this reinforces my optimism that we will build back travel better than before.¡±