ASK THE EXPERTS
Taking care on the road
Does your travel programme ensure your travellers are safe behind the wheel?
A
RECENT ENTERPRISE RENT-A-CAR SURVEY suggests that a lack of preparation puts many business travellers at risk when driving abroad – only 40 per cent of respondents said they bothered to brush up on local motoring laws before hitting the road; one-third admitted to not knowing telephone numbers for emergency services; and a worrying one in five said they
didn’t know whether speed limits were displayed in km/h or mph. As with all such polls, it can only be a snapshot, and probably doesn’t reveal a universal truth, but the results do pose wider questions. To what extent can, or should, employers and travel managers assume responsibility for disseminating what many would see as basic, common-sense information? Equally, to what extent should travellers be expected to do their own pre-trip homework? No road-warrior needs to be told how to use a hotel room keycard (or what to do when it inevitably fails to work) or that airport security queues can be interminably long, so surely they don’t need to be told that French motorists – or most of them – drive on the right? Or do they?
THE BUYER GLOBAL TRAVEL BUYER, financial sector
I WOULD HAVE TO SAY FROM THE OUTSET that I believe corporate travel managers, in general, do have – or should have – ‘education’ as part of their remit, in that it is part of our job to give travellers the best relevant and timely information about their trip and about the destination they are going to. If they have been given that advice, and it is robust and reliable, we have done our job. If a traveller then chooses to ignore that advice and then gets into some kind of trouble, I am afraid that is rather down to them. We treat our travellers as adults – rightly or wrongly – and consequently we expect them
to have a certain amount of awareness of their duty-of-care responsibilities to themselves. Of course, if a traveller is going on a trip to a destination where there is deemed to be a certain level of risk, then that’s a different story – our security team is then involved, and the briefings on the do’s and don’ts in that particular location are much more thorough. If something does then go wrong, our travellers always have an emergency number for the country they are in, and we can give them on-the-spot advice. When employees are visiting city centres, we book them into conveniently-located hotels, where we have conducted a full due diligence appraisal, and they then use local taxis or public transport. Car rental becomes necessary when visiting an out-of-the-way location – and then the risk briefings automatically become part of the pre-trip process. But if they are only going across to France, for example, we would assume that they know the local rules and regulations, and we would expect them to abide by them. If they don’t know what the rules are, and can’t find out for themselves, they can always ask us. If they then disregard that advice and they are stopped for breaking a speed limit, for example, I’m afraid that is down to them. We can’t hold their hands every step of the way, and generally they wouldn’t want us to.
42 BBT September/October 2016 THE TMC
ANTHONY RISSBROOK, chair of the GTMC Surface Transport Group and managing director of Hillgate Travel
THIS WHOLE SUBJECT OPENS UP A CAN OF WORMS around how far individuals should take personal responsibility for their own actions.
Let us not forget that business travellers who rent cars are the same human beings that rent cars when they go on holiday. Each individual has a personal responsibil- ity for making sure they are sufficiently up to speed on the rules of the roads on which they are driving. There is a limit to how much spoon-feeding a business traveller can be given and common sense needs to prevail. Could the car rental companies be more helpful in providing the relevant information at the car collection points? Yes, we believe they could. They could provide basic information about local
BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM
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