A passport is a travel document allowing a person to travel from one country to another. The first time the word “passport” was ever used in English was in 1498 when a merchant was given a safe conduct or a passport for his goods and ships for a short or even a long period. This type of document became more frequent as travel to Europe from England became more common for diplomatic and travel purposes in the 1500s.Initially they were signed by the King.
It took a long time before the process for issuing passports became standardised. Only in 1914 were photographs added to the UK passport. The first real success in establishing international standards for travel documents was achieved in the Paris Conference on Passports & Customs Formalities and Through Tickets in 1920, but it was really only 60 years later that there were real international standards.
Now four in five people in the UK have a passport, one in three in the USA. The number in the United States increased from 7 million in 1989 to 110 million now, partly due to regulations introduced in 2007 making it a requirement to have a passport to go to Mexico, Canada and the Caribbean.
One factoid shows the future of the tourism industry – only one in 50 persons in China have a passport.
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