The professional body for business travel, the Institute of Travel Management, has called for improvements in the tracking of staff after a survey revealed many companies are unable or too slow to locate employees overseas.
The study of 80 travel buyers showed 23% could not account for their staff and of those who could, 50% would be unable to do so within an hour of an emergency.
ITM executive director Paul Tilstone said it highlights a failure of not only corporations but business travel agents.
“As well as raising the issue of organisations’ duty of care towards their travellers, this also highlights a lack of business continuity or contingency planning, especially among travel management companies,” he said.
“If TMCs are truly management companies, then knowing where your customers’ employees are must be a fundamental part of that service.”
He said a single tracking system would not be practical but urged for the introduction of “basic, achievable” standards.
Tilstone added that the cost of implementing such a system should fall on buyers.
“Buyers cannot have their cake and at it,” he said. “Instead of seeing traveller tracking as a value-added service, buyers have to accept it as a separate travel management cost, the provision of which relies predominantly on manual processes.”
But the cost must be identifiable, he added.
