Travel Risk Management – the Increased Importance

TMCs and travel risk management companies can be a great support for the organizations. PASS provides the booking data for preventive and active risk identification.

When restrictions are lifted and companies start to travel more, duty of care responsibilities and Travel Risk Management have never been more important, ensuring that travelers are supported before and on their trips from a safety but also medical perspective.

Back in 2016, I wrote an article on this blog about Travel Risk Management and how IT can improve the security of business travel. My concluding statement at the time was: “The measures concerning personal safety are lower (then IT security). Thus, here is still a need to catch up.” In my opinion, the latest by now is exactly the time to catch up at the latest. Accordingly, today’s article will also focus on the question of how travel risk management companies can support on this topic.

Why Is Travel Risk Management Needed?

Responsible companies put the well-being of their employees first. This applies not only to the workplace in the office or home office, but also on business trips. A focus on employee welfare creates the basis for safe and successful travel. Additionally, the risk of legal action due to negligence is minimized. After all, if a company sends employees on business trips, it is responsible for their safety and health as part of its duty of care.

Experts from the travel industry predict in a survey about the future of business travel published by TNMT recently that the importance of duty of care for business travelers will continue to grow after the pandemic, making it an essential factor that must be met to enable future business travel for all employees. And also Lufthansa City Center recently published a case study [german] about the future of business travel where they predict that companies will invest more in Travel Risk Management. And since all good things come in threes I would like to mention that the Association of German Travel Management, called VDR, in its barometer survey [german] within the German economy comes to the result that nearly 80 percent expect that the focus on Travel Risk Management is likely to grow.

The duty of care begins before the trip, continues during the trip, and continues even after the return. When people go on business trips for a company, appropriate measures and travel policies must be in place and known for their safety.

The increased importance of traveler health is reflected in the work of the International Standards Organization (ISO), which is currently working on a new ISO 31030 (Risk Travel Management – Guidance for Organization). With the ISO 31030 standard, organizations have guidance to increase internal assurance of the duty of care around business travel and to ensure the safety of their travelers.

How Can Travel Risk Management Companies Support?

In general, travel risk management providers support in consulting but also in particular in active implementation and support with the aim to minimize business travel risks and to be able to act quickly and professionally in case of emergency.

The services of the individual travel risk management providers vary, but generally include the following aspects:

• Advise and create internal travel policies and holistic recommendations for safety, health, business activities and liability issues.
• Preventive and strategic preparation of stays abroad
• Integration of all travel data and GPS tracking
• Monitoring and analysis of travel countries on risks and security incidents
• Preventive and real-time travel alerts incl. corresponding communication management as well as emergency apps
• 24/7 support especially for medical and security assistance
• Worldwide crisis management and global emergency response, such as emergency evacuations and repatriations
• Currently also advice and recommendations on Covid-19

All these measures should be supported by modern tools and technologies.

In other words, travel risk management companies can support the coverage of the three main pillars of travel risk management: Prevent, Monitor and Respond.