How To Alert Your Travelers to Fast-Changing Policies and Health Risks

Safety notification, Risk Approval, Health concerns regarding suppliers – Like it or not, these have all become necessary alerts in the world of travel. Gone are the days when we can simply send a traveler off with their itinerary and wish them a “bon voyage.” Duty of Care means keeping a minute eye on all of our travelers at once. We need to know if the health risk level of their destination changes before or during their trip. We need to alert them to changing safety environments, changing supplier protocol, changing … everything!

What New Duties Does a Travel Manager Have Thanks To COVID?

Travel managers have a lot more on their plates now than they did at the beginning of this year.

• Keeping track of ever-changing risk levels at destinations
• New forms for travelers acknowledging and accepting risks
• Watching out for supplier policy changes such as mandatory masks on airplanes
• If the traveler is corporate, keeping track of company policy on health issues

Obviously, this isn’t an exhaustive list, but the most taxing issue? Keeping their travelers up to date on every and any change to situations as they come up.

Travel managers are expected to send their travelers messages and information needed to travel safely. The sad reality is that while this growing purview of responsibilities keeps expanding … the actual number of travel managers at any one company may be shrinking due to furloughs and layoffs.

How is this workload to be managed?

With automation.

It’s the only answer that makes sense. We need to keep our budgets stable but also enable our Travel Managers to be able to handle all of these new duties. Ideally, as travel comes back, more personnel will be able to come on board, but right now we have to help our Travel Managers do the best job they can for our travelers.

The Travel industry had been automating at a fast clip before COVID, but predictions for an acceleration of this trend are strong. In order to stay relevant, agencies and companies will have to invest in technology to help increase efficiency.

Traveler communication automation is not as difficult as it may sound. Data companies like Sitata have been aggregating health risks by location for just this purpose. Automation companies like Cornerstone have tested and proven traveler communication tools as well as built-in travel notification practices. All that’s left is to combine these into one platform.

The Solution

Freeing up travel managers from repetitive actions by automating communications that:

• Send travelers clear, concise messages with the information they need to travel safely.
• Pinging them before they go, as they prepare to return, and when they get back
• Giving travelers the latest updates in bite-sized chunks.

Now more than ever, it’s also a good idea to ensure each trip is necessary. For corporate travelers, each booking could be routed for approval based on health risk vs. how essential the trip is. This could be the same person for both expense and risk, or you may want to notify HR, Risk, or Security as well.

Outsourcing your Travel Manger’s more routine tasks to our program means they can get back to doing what they do best – caring for your travelers on a personalized level.

Automate For The Long Run

Luckily, the combination of these two tools is exactly what is happening, and it’s being introduced by an industry leader in travel automation.

Cornerstone Information Systems® is introducing Risk Messenger™, a tool whose automation solves much of the Duty of Care challenge in today’s COVID and disruption-focused world. The best part? It’s designed to fit right in with most company workflows.

Risk Messenger provides relevant and current risk information thanks to its partnership with Sitata, Inc. and allows for automated communication with travelers at every touchpoint of their trips. Customized automatic emails can also provide travelers with company and supplier travel policy information, destination risk updates, and HR forms necessary for travel even before they leave their homes.

While a lot of life right now is volatile and ever-changing, you can at least be certain that the automation trend is here to stay. Change the chaotic and confusing world of traveler updates into a clear and concise system of messaging and notifications. If your agency or company has yet to take the dive, now is absolutely the time to begin.

Cornerstone’s experts are available to discuss this trend and let you know how we can help alleviate many of your own travel managers’ loads right now.

Be with your travelers every step of their trip. Get one step ahead and invest in Automated Traveler Communication That Works for you and your clients before the next disruption.