Crisis Management Plans Crucial for Tracking Travellers - December 2008

WHEN the anti-government protests erupted at Bangkok Airport late November, leading travel service provider for the academia sector Campus Travel had 136 travellers in Thailand.

The travel management company had a further 47 clients in India when the first strike hit, although some travellers were not in Mumbai at the time of the blasts.

For travel management companies around the world, the recent events in Thailand and India have highlighted the importance of having a robust duty of care and risk management process in place.

According to Campus Travel, customer safety is one of the most important aspects of managing travel itineraries and goes hand in hand with having effective crisis and risk management strategies in place.

General Manager Campus Travel Nick Sutherland said if an emergency strikes and travel is not mandated through a dedicated travel management company, it is often difficult to locate and assist a traveller if there is no record of their whereabouts.

"When Campus Travel is alerted to an emergency, we initiate the first steps of our Crisis Management Plan with a `where are they report' which covers the company's entire database of travelling clients," Mr Sutherland said.

"Many organisations will outsource traveller tracking to a third party, such as International SOS. But if your staff have not booked with your preferred travel agent, neither the travel agent nor ISOS are going to be able to find them."

"You have very little chance of tracking staff if they have booked an airfare over the internet and without knowing where they are or how to contact them it is not possible to reissue tickets and rearrange travel plans over the internet."

Mr Sutherland said Campus Travel had designed an extremely hands-on Crisis Management process that could be enacted anytime and anywhere to ensure the needs of clients were met when they needed it most.

"A Crisis Management alert will be raised not just for acts of terrorism or political protests, but also for any event that may affect travel," Mr Sutherland said. "Such events can include airline strikes, poor weather conditions or natural disasters."

"At Campus Travel we have a proactive approach to the management of duty of care. Customers' safety is of utmost importance and as a result travel management companies need to have an all-hands-on-deck policy that is carried through until staff are certain all clients have been accounted for."

Mr Sutherland said Asia and the Indian sub continent were popular destinations for travellers within the academic sector.

He said that while all of their clients would have been travelling on the cheapest
airline tickets, when it came to accommodation in Mumbai, the two most frequently used hotels were the Taj Mahal and The Oberoi.

"For our clients who were not in Mumbai at the time of the blasts, we kept track of their safety by making contact directly with them or through a key client contact in Australia who then communicated to our travellers in India," he said.

An organisation that fails to mandate staff travel through a preferred travel management company is putting employees at risk. In an emergency, the only thing people are concerned with is the safety of family members or friends travelling abroad.

"People want to be secure in the knowledge their loved ones are being looked after,"
Mr Sutherland said.

If you would like to know more about Campus Travel's Crisis Management procedures, please contact Julie McLean 0409 332 420 or julie.mclean@campustravel.com.au

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