Airline disruptions, rail strikes, airport closures. Bird flu and the London Tube bombings.
Ongoing significant travel events have triggered the ever increasing need for rigorous destination and security intelligence. From pandemics and fires to impending natural disasters and union strikes, automation and centralized information build business resilience while reducing risks to travel plans.
Today, companies recognize the need to prepare and protect employees, evaluate risks and respond to events around the world.
Mitigating risk is an essential responsibility of companies charged with providing a duty of care. And that responsibility is increasingly cutting across organizational boundaries, says Leslie West, senior vice president of Client Data Solutions (CDS) for BCD Travel:
“Customers are increasingly asking groups like travel management, human resources and health and security departments within their companies to work together to protect their employees. In this cross-functional environment, it is vital to have a solution that couples the categorization of travel disruptions, risk exposure and crisis situations with relevant information and business processes to safeguard travelers, before and during their trip. As a result, we have seen a 55 percent increase in customers adopting DecisionSourceTM: Security Manager in 2007 over its previous year – evidence of the trend, need, and value BCD Travel offers customers.”
Companies should be able to answer tough questions such as:
- What is the political, cultural and economic climate in countries around the world?
- Where are my travelers right now?
- Has an event occurred that puts my travelers at risk?
- How can I reach travelers in time of need?
Pull and push information to travelers
Accurate and timely information is the cornerstone of effective risk mitigation. Having the right information at the right time – and on the appropriate device – benefits travelers and the travel program prior to booking, at booking, and while en-route.
Relevant information takes a wide variety of forms, ranging from security and risk briefings on countries and major cities worldwide to weather alerts, cultural etiquette and consular requirements.
An abundance of data requires a blend of automation and process to prevent information overload, says West. As part of its DecisionSource: Security Manager risk mitigation solution, BCD Travel provides travelers and travel managers with destination information and security intelligence from over 400 different sources, based on specific filters set at the company and employee level. Subscribers may filter delivery of security and travel news alerts by destination, urgency level and category; such as health, weather and transportation type.
The categories currently in use by DecisionSource: Security Manager customers include:
- Any major airline or airport disruption
- Travel warnings from official Government sources
- Any weather condition that has a significant effect on major transportation systems
- Any event that causes widespread cancellations, delays of more than two hours or a total shutdown of a major airline, airport or railway
- Flights canceled for other reasons
- Any violent attack that causes damage or injuries at a major hotel
- Direct impact on travel from an outbreak of disease
Although destination and risk information is available through DecisionSource: Security Manager, realistically, travelers with access to valuable information may not always seek it out. For that reason, clients can enable the solution to proactively send relevant e-mails, based on event severity categories they’ve set as well as PNRs booked, to potentially impacted travelers.
Monitor, protect and respond with traveler tracking
Today, says West, over 185 BCD Travel customers are using DecisionSource: Security Manager to collect data from over 50 countries to track and monitor travelers and provide risk intelligence for their travel programs.
Coupled with specific traveler reservations, detailed situational views are updated every 60 minutes, giving companies the ability to locate travelers across the globe, while incorporating en route changes, same plane travel and flight tracking, and hotel bookings
With this overview, West says, action is a click away: “It’s crucial to have both a pictorial global view and traveler-level detail. In the event the company has the need to deploy an incident response team, they can easily share the details by printing, exporting, or e-mailing the details to the appropriate individuals within the company.
Understand and act with relevant, viable data
Different companies and travel programs have different needs when it comes to pulling data from risk mitigation technology. At BCD Travel, DecisionSource: Security Manager incorporates a full library of reports. Among the most commonly used:
- Hot Spot: Quick snapshot around the globe of U.S. Department of State or Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s cities and locations of risk, combined with travelers in those locations
- Flight Arrival / Departure Grid: Quickly identify numbers of travelers arriving or departing certain cities by date or date range
- Flight Arrival / Departure Detail: Getting more specific to identify the travelers and airports
- Flight, Hotel or City Incident Reports: Across flights, hotels, or a city itself, companies can quickly find travelers
- Same Plane Travelers: Due to possible insurance or overall risk mitigation policies, companies can report on employees traveling on the same plane. Reporting on dimensions like number of travelers, business unit, flight number or carrier, companies can provide the appropriate level of care for their employees
In addition to analyzing travel plans prior to travel for risk management, there are many opportunities to further support travel programs and reveal both cost and safety when looking at pre-travel reservation data. Tracking policy compliance issues, shifting market share to preferred vendors, identifying meeting opportunities or even preventing unnecessary trips – all aid in aligning spend before it occurs.
BCD Corporate Travel
