The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) has released "new normal" insurance guidelines for the travel and tourism sector globally.

WTTC is a private global forum composed of over 200 heads of world’s leading travel and tourism companies, such as aviation, hotels, and cruise.

In a statement, WTTC said the guidelines are designed to drive the return of safe, healthy and responsible travel, noting that insurance will provide peace of mind and risk mitigation to consumers, suppliers, and organizations across all the stakeholders in the sector.

The new guidelines were compiled based on input from leading companies, many of which have partnered with trusted experts in public health and governments to support safe, healthy, and responsible travels.

It also aims to promote consistent standards across all relevant functions with an increased focus on health and safety, in line with what travelers need and expect.

“We have worked closely with key players across the travel insurance industry to make recommendations to ensure individual travelers, groups and organizations can feel safe and confident enough to travel, sure in the knowledge they have the protection they need,” WTTC President and Chief Operating Officer (CEO) Gloria Guevara said.

WTTC divided the new normal guidelines into four pillars, including operational and staff preparedness; ensuring a safe experience; rebuilding trust and confidence; innovation; and implementing enabling policies.

Among the recommendations announced include:

• All organizations to provide risk management plans, including how they aim to combat COVID-19 to insurers

• Organizations to make sure their plans are thorough, practical, and simple to follow

• All staff to be informed of protective measures being taken, which include insurance products that will cover them

• Insurers to ensure audits identify and plug gaps in and source the right partners and providers to ensure appropriate coverage

• Insurers to create blanket insurance and crisis management coverage to give comfort to customers

• Ensure there is enhanced awareness of the terms and conditions, restrictions, and coverage limits of insurance products/policies

• Insurers to provide a minimum base of mandatory coverage for risks posed by COVID-19

• Educate travelers who are unfamiliar with the risk they could be exposed to and what coverage to look for.

To recall, Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat has expressed her confidence in rebuilding the country’s local tourism industry with the help of WTTC, whose primary initiative is the recovery of the global tourism industry amid the unprecedented crisis brought by the COVID-19 pandemic.