Tradeoffs between Privacy and Screening Efficiency for Air Passengers - Implications for Tourism Supply Chain Management

This study employs the stated preference method to explore airline passengers' choices during security screening and examines their trade-offs between privacy and efficiency. We compare two Asian economic hub cities (i.e. Hong Kong and Shanghai), with 500 business and leisure travellers sampled from each city. A generalised mixed multinomial logit model is estimated. The results suggest that travellers display varied levels of privacy concerns, including biometrics, biographical data, identifiers, and behavioural information. The participants from Shanghai expressed a willingness to go through fingerprint scanning and to provide facial images. The travellers in Hong Kong displayed notable reluctance to receive iris scans and disclose political and religious affiliations, and they were particularly hesitant about sharing medication records. Despite some differences between the two markets, both groups strongly opposed smartphone tracking, including access to search history and GPS location. In general, business (vs. leisure) travellers, men (vs. women), individuals with higher education levels, and those with higher personal monthly incomes strongly preferred fast-track schemes that utilised personal data. Our findings highlight the possibility of making more effective transitions to high-tech screening methods that meet the changing expectations of travellers if total screening time can be significantly decreased.