TRAVELLER TRACKING BY ROB GILL
organisations also use security firms such as International SOS, Ijet and Anvil if more specialist services are required. Technology advances in recent years
have created more opportunities for companies to track their employees and contact them when needed. Doing this is not just necessary to help with travel arrangements but also to ensure their safety and security as part of an employers’ duty-of-care obligations. Managing director at corporate travel consultancy Advantilis Toby Guest, an experienced travel buyer, believes that mobile technology is also encouraging travellers to “take more responsibility” for supplying their location to their employer. “Although the technology provided by Ijet and International SOS has itself improved in terms of functionality and accuracy, I believe the critical factor that’s made it easier to track travellers is the travellers themselves,” he says.
“Mobile technology and social network-
ing are now pervasive and have their own tracking embedded, in a sense. In parallel, I believe travellers are therefore able to – and more likely to – take more responsibility for their own accountability. This is partly because the mobile technology makes this easier to do so.”
ITINERARY TRACKING The idea of tracking within business travel primarily relates – at least for now – to the ability to collate travel data and itineraries to locate travellers in a particular city, region or country rather than using GPS (Global Positioning System) technol- ogy to constantly follow an employee’s mobile device. When GPS is used, it normally just requires the traveller to
Improving the reliability of travel data is one of the main factors in successfully tracking travellers
‘check-in’ once at their location, using an app or other device. Several TMCs offer mapping-style tools that allow travel buyers to see both where their travellers are currently located and where they are planning to go. This kind of information allows buyers to quickly assess how many staff are currently in a particular location as well as those planning to travel to that area for a specific timeframe. Wings, for example, has included a
traveller tracking function as part of its new Go Data platform, which features ‘real-time’ tracking, interactive country maps and reports showing travellers by location and date, booking details and pre-trip analysis. Traditionally, this data has come in the form of flight bookings and passenger name records (PNRs) from the global distribution systems (GDSs). But TMC systems, such as HRG’s Insight mapping tool, now have the ability to pull in data from non-GDS bookings using direct feeds into its system. Nigel Meyer, HRG’s group technology and data services director, says: “We capture the data for flights, accommodation and rail, which is then made available to the
relevant part of the client’s organisation. This is being more widely used by clients to see where their travellers are. We also have car hire data, but that only tells you where they picked the car up. We don’t track anybody from a GPS signal.” Carlson Wagonlit Travel’s programme management director, Rob Haynes, adds that its tracking systems are designed to be “helpful and unobtrusive” and work “purely to assist in case of disruption”. Improving the reliability of travel data is one of the main factors in successfully tracking travellers, according to Jon Rich- ardson, risk management specialist for expenses specialist Concur, which also operates the Concur Risk Messaging tracking and communication platform. “We consolidate employee information with travel data, which gives clients not just the ability to see where their travel- lers are but also company assets such as offices, distribution centres and refineries in that location,” he says. “We give a risk ranking for locations from ‘one’ to ‘five’. So if somebody books a trip to a high-risk location the system will automatically alert the client. It will also send an alert if there are too many people booked on the same flight and that is outside company policy.” Richardson adds that the best way to
get reliable travel data is through TMC feeds, which provide information in a more uniform way than GDSs, where the data can be “problematic and haphazard” due to “incorrect and missing data” such as wrong mobile phone numbers for travellers.
MAVERICK TRAVELLERS But the biggest drawback to itinerary tracking is the bête noire of travel depart- ments everywhere – those ‘mavericks’ who
Even as perceptions about tracking mature in the consumer world, we think corporate tracking will continue to lag because there is an additional layer of suspicion and concern about your employer tracking your location. You’d certainly have to remember to switch off all your devices if you were pulling a sickie.
SIMON McLEAN, managing director, Click Travel
BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM BBT MARCH/APRIL 2015 93
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