Feature: Traveller tracking
One step AHEAD
As bosses begin to pay more attention to their duty of care to business travellers, Linda Fox examines the tools out there to help them keep tabs on their travellers
PICTURE this – you’re on business in South America and your taxi gets a puncture. Two people approach the car and rob you of your belongings. What do you do? Admittedly it’s an extreme example but one that highlights the importance of traveller tracking technology just as well as a terrorist attack or natural disaster. Reduced to simple terms, if a business doesn’t know where its travellers are it can’t help them. Traveller tracking has made its way to the top
of the agenda in the past year not only because of the corporates’ legal Duty of Care and Duty to Warn responsibilities but also because there is recognition from employers that their employees are their most valuable asset. While that might sound touchy feely, an employee would be hard- pushed to travel to a high-risk destination unless he or she felt they would be briefed properly and looked after should anything happen. ”Take-up of the technology is
continuing to grow especially when you compare it to overall business travel which has not grown because of the economic climate. We have seen it grow rapidly, 20 to 30 per cent year on year,” says Jan-Coos Geesink, chief executive of Travel Security Services, a joint venture between Control Risks and International SOS. Geesink added that take-up of the technology
International services company Serco has
“The systems have proved their worth throughout the major incidences of the past year, including the Haiti earthquake and the ash cloud crisis”
been using Business Travel Direct's Data Suite to track its travellers for the past two years but is now looking to use the tool for some specific detailed reports. “We have used the system to quickly ascertain people’s whereabouts during significant events such as the recent earthquake in New Zealand. We are also considering using it for length of stay reports around tax liability. We see it as a tool that ensures we understand traveller whereabouts but we also feel it has other potentially valuable purposes,” says Margaret Birse, Serco’s global travel director. In response to corporate demand HRG recently unveiled its Security Suite bringing its own traveller tracking technology and reporting functionality together with an extended partnership with security specialist red24. According to HRG’s director of technology and data services, Nigel Meyer, the security specialist was already providing alert information to the traveller tracking tool but corporates were asking for additional support and specialist services,
has also risen because the systems have proved their worth throughout the major incidences of the past year including the Haiti earthquake and the ash cloud crisis. A further reason for its growing importance is
to do with spend management and compliance with corporate travel policies.
from consultancy on security policy to on the ground response. Meyer added that the TMC is also working with red24 on bespoke projects for a number of clients. Meyer says that very few new contracts don’t include traveller tracking as a pre-requisite nowadays. The TMC therefore decided to develop its own in-house technology because it is handling the client data anyway as well as passing it over to third party security firms. “Those companies are security specialists and great if you want a standalone product. We
provide security information but also use that information for general travel management and programme optimisation. Where it is not our core business we jump out, but travel information is our core business.” The opposing argument is that a corporate has access to a much more global view of travellers and potential risk by dealing directly with a security specialist such as red24, the Anvil Group or Travel Security Services. Matthew Judge, director of the Anvil Group,
says, “Global corporations sometimes deal with many travel agencies around the world and the travel agency will only be able to provide data for travel booked through that agency so they don’t get their global travel footprint and can’t create a response for multiple groups.
24 I THE BUSINESS TRAVEL MAGAZINE 18 I THE BUSINESS TRAVEL MAGAZINE
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