It’s the month of love and in the corporate travel space that translates to demonstrating care for the

wellbeing of business travellers to reduce avoidable risk. Companies have a legal and moral

obligation to take care of their employees who engage in business travel. Their “Duty of Care”

requires that they supply their road warriors with travel risk management tools, strategies and resources for safe and successful business travel.

The most effective programs are built on three critical components: effective planning, reliable support, and regular re-assessment. Here we provide a high-level overview of a few crucial building blocks to consider when building traveller safety into your travel programme.

1.  Prepare

Before each traveller embarks on a journey, a thorough travel risk assessment should be undertaken. Start by making sure that you have the right suppliers in place. Do you have a third-party risk provider who can support you in scenario planning? Have you checked that your business travel insurance is up to date?

Inform your staff of the risks associated with travel. Discuss major and common threats and focus on prevention strategies. It’s useful to inform travellers about the culture, rules and laws of their destination so that they can pay respect to their hosts.

2.  Support

The next step is to provide support to travellers on the road. The ability to live-track the location of travellers greatly reduces stress during unforeseen events. Discuss GPS tracking with staff and outline the benefits to the individual’s safety. Make sure that they do not see this as being policed and rather view it in a favourable light.

Rennies BCD Travel takes a proactive approach to safety and provides 24/7 assistance for travellers in their care, regardless of location. They provide accurate and timely alerts to travellers in high-risk areas, alerting them to a number of destination risks and incidents including:

• Political unrest
• Extreme weather conditions
• Cyberterrorism
• Disease outbreaks

The Rennies BCD Alert App helps travel managers better manage their security programmes

remotely. The app tracks caution, warning and emergency level alerts against traveller bookings and

delivers alerts via home screen push notifications to mobile devices. Managers can also track the

checked-in status so that they can focus on remaining travellers.

3.  Re-assess

Your business risk management programme must be dynamic and agile to respond to new challenges. Review of the program can both improve the program, and more importantly, support the organisation’s efforts to keep your travelling employees safe.

Risk and disruption can occur at any time, so it is essential that corporate travellers understand the

risks and are educated in the best course of action to take in the event of a threat. The key

ingredient is communication through reliable channels at all times and that’s where your TMC excels.