TROUBLESHOOTING
was to check my emails to see if anyone had tried to contact me,” says the client.
“I had two emails; one from the SMARTtrack system alerting me to the potential risk in Turkey and the names and locations of my employees, and another message from Business Travel Direct, explaining that SMARTtrack had automatically sent out the relevant SMS and email communications to my employees within the area of the incident. Each traveller had also received a personal call from the risk management team at Business Travel Direct to ensure their safety.” Here’s a list of some common troublesome situations buyers and TMCs contend with:
EXTREME CIRCUMSTANCES
Emergency evacuation is at the ultimate end of the troubleshooting spectrum, argues Perolls. “We have a lot of travellers in the construction or marine business and working in more dangerous areas of the world. What we’re working on is a service that will crisis-manage where there’s a real problem and you’ve got to get people out by sending someone there to rescue them. “If you take Afghanistan or Iraq, there are western companies operating in those countries, and people have to travel from one place to another so, in those cases, you often require a specialist service managed from the UK where you’re actually facilitating their safe transport,” Perolls adds. “That’s not evacuation but helping people ‘in country’, which is Boy’s Own stuff really.” WorldAware provides evacuations during political unrest (last year it evacuated clients from Nicaragua and Colombia), security-related situations and natural disas- ters – and it offers smartphone apps that track travellers. The client “opts into” the tracking system and can press a crisis/panic button on the app, which triggers a GPS fix on their location. WorldAware’s operations centre delivers an “immediate response and assistance”. “It’s an opt-in system and doesn’t involve continuous
tracking,” says WorldAware’s Howell. “But we have one that is continuous tracking for the executive team and for high-risk travel environments, such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan; it’s mandated to have this kind of tracking in high-risk environments.” Rob Walker, International SOS & Control
Risks’ security expert, also operates at the extreme end of travel troubleshooting, including thinking ahead after a volcanic eruption. “We identify potential diversion hubs for regional flights and look at block-booking rooms, which we did for the volcano in Bali in 2017,” he says. “For this situation, there are also the knock-on effects of people being stuck longer than expected in a location and only having enough chronic medication/contact
68 MARCH/APRIL 2019
buyingbusinesstravel.com
MINIMISE TROUBLE WITH A CHECKLIST
DOCUMENTS: Check pre-trip health, travel alerts, passport and visa requirements, and local laws, for each journey.
PROFILES: Make sure the data you as a company, and your TMC, hold on each traveller is comprehensive and up to date; this information is essential in a crisis.
MAP OUT RISK: Evaluate and prepare a list of destinations your company sends travellers to regularly. Flag up those that could be considered “at risk”. Agree what level of risk is appli- cable to each destination in terms of crime, illness, unfamiliar culture/language, and what procedures can be put in place to mitigate those risks.
TRACKING: Ensure you have reliable tracking processes in place – your TMC will be able to run reports before and during a trip.
EMERGENCY PLAN: Work with your TMC to prepare an emergency response plan and ensure it is communicated to employees on a regular basis.
POST-SITUATION REVIEW: Once an emergency has been managed and travellers safely returned, analyse the response process and see if there are ways it can be improved.
SOURCE: WINGS TRAVEL MANAGEMENT
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