Your company or startup can boost customer acquisition and revenue generation by increasing the number of business trips. But during business travel, managing travel risks is of utmost important.
Your business can streamline travel risk management by implementing a risk management program. The program should prepare employees to manage common travel risks like social unrest, public health emergencies, unexpected weather conditios, and natural calamities. At the same time, it needs to ensure that each employee can manage unanticipated travel risks by getting real-time information and assistance.
Your organization can implement such travel risk management programs more efficiently using a professional travel management company. The travel management company will help employees mitigate various travel risks by providing information and assistance. Your employees can further use tech solutions or interact with a corporate travel consultant to get the required support.
A travel management company will make it easier for you to effectuate travel risk management in several ways.
In this blog, let us see the key reasons why your organization should manage travel risks using a travel management company.
9 Reasons Your Business Must Manage Travel Risks Using a Travel Management Company
1. Travel Policy Development
Your organizational travel policy must define the procedures and guidelines employees must follow to remain safe and manage travel risks. At the same time, the policy must help employees make safer travel choices and know how to get emergency assistance.
A travel management company manages business travel programs of clients across sectors. The in-house consultants deployed by the company help you identify and address various travel risks. You can leverage the insights shared by them to refine existing travel policies.
2. Pre-Trip Risk Assessment
Travel risks vary across destinations. For instance, civil or political risks are on the rise in specific countries. Likewise, COVID-19 risk is still high in many countries. Hence, you must prepare and assist each employee to manage travel risks according to his business travel destination.
Travel management companies perform destination-specific travel risk assessments before an employee embarks on a business trip. Also, they share up-to-date information with the employee. Employees can mitigate common travel risks by leveraging the information while planning business trips.
3. Travel Risk Training
Many organizations these days keep employees safe and productive during business trips by providing travel risk training. These training programs help employees understand various types of business travel risks. Also, the trainers help employees manage these risks by taking appropriate actions and making informed decisions.
A travel management company helps your organization conduct travel risk training programs regularly. The travel consultant deployed by the company prepares your employees to minimize travel risk by sharing the latest information and real-time experiences.
4. Safer Travel Choices
Employees often find it challenging to minimize travel risks due to lack of travel choices. But a travel management company helps you centralize business travel booking. The centralization will result in the company selecting and booking travel products for your employees.
The experienced team at the company considers several factors to book safer flights, accommodations, car rentals, and other travel products. Their choice of business travel products helps your employees minimize travel risks while remaining safe and stress-free.
5. Real-Time Information Delivery
Employees often experience stress when they cannot manage minor travel risks like flight delays and cancellations, loss of baggage, etc. Travel management companies these days use advanced software solutions that deliver real-time travel information to employees as mobile alerts.
Also, they deliver a variety of information required by employees to manage travel risks such as weather conditions, political unrest, natural disasters, etc. Alternatively, employees can contact a corporate travel consultant to reschedule or cancel reservations at the last minute.
6. Live- Traveler Tracking
Most employees visit multiple cities during the same international business trip. It becomes easier for your business to share relevant information and provide the required information to an employee when you know his current location.
The travel management company helps you track the real-time location of each employee using sophisticated software solutions. The software monitors your employees’ movement as he travels from one city to another. Hence, it becomes easier for you to communicate with the employee and help him mitigate travel risks.
7. Duty of Care Solution
Leading travel management companies these days impress customers by providing robust duty-of-care solutions. They partner with international health and security service providers to ensure that a business traveler can get real-time assistance in case of emergencies.
When you use such travel management companies, your employees can access emergency assistance services regardless of their location. The provider will help your employees minimize unexpected travel risks by providing support and facilitating evacuations.
8. Traveler Assistance Services
While engaging in business travel, your employees need the assistance of local contacts to recover lost documents, get emergency medical support, or handle legal issues. Your business will find it challenging to build networks of local contacts across regions.
But travel management companies set up networks of trusted contacts to ensure that your employee can manage unexpected travel risks without experiencing stress.
9. Travel Data Analysis
You can minimize business travel risks by updating your organizational travel policies regularly. But you need data-driven insights to update the travel policy effectively. Leading travel management companies these days use advanced data analytics.
They use the data analytics solution to analyze the real-time travel data of your employees. The analysis helps them assess business travel risks based on trends and patterns. You can leverage the actionable insights shared by the company to update travel policies by finding areas of improvement.
Conclusion
Your organization can improve business travel risk management using a travel management company. But you should remember that each travel management company manages and mitigates business travel risk in a specific way.
For instance, some companies enhance work travelers’ safety and security by investing in robust duty-of-care resources. On the other hand, many companies accelerate travel risk management by enabling them to use tech solutions or contact a corporate travel consultant.
Hence, you can help employees mitigate emerging and existing travel risks only by using the right travel management company. While outsourcing travel risk management, you should focus on choosing a company that delivers real-time information and provides on-demand assistance to each employee regardless of his business travel destination.
