Bliesure, open booking and other b*^#$(#@ business travel terms impacting travel safety

Have you noticed a run of new buzzwords in the business travel sector in recent years? Contracted words like “Bliesure” taken from business & leisure, simplified terms such “open bookings” used for the book any where crowd an other industry phrases typically created by travel management companies or travel providers?

Is anyone stopping to examine the origins of these expressions and how they came to be or is the industry just too filled with those that recycle presentations from the growing number of conferences and forums, just so they sound like they are keeping up with the industry? Has anyone called b*^#$(#@ on the most outrageous of the group? 

Bliesure tops our list. You joined two words to make a catchy, fabricated word. Did you keep the finances separated? Are you reporting personal taxation benefits on the portion of the journey that is not business? Are you getting “free stuff” from your business as a result of your bliesure activities? Have you committed immigration fraud by obtaining business visa for tourist activities? Does your insurance cover you for both activities? Did you also take out your own personal insurance for the personal portion of the journey, or did you just get that for free too? What about your phone, laptop and tablet? Did you bring your own personal ones on the trip or are you using the company’s? Is the company’s data and equipment safe and secure whist you take personal time? What happens if you get sick or injured doing “personal stuff”? What if you get drunk and injured on personal time? What if you are LBGT and go out and meet people socially? Did anyone warn you of any of this? 

Personalisation has been growing in recent years but we haven’t seen any evidence of it when it comes to travel safety since we created a personalized travel safety assessment and resource for every individual traveller for every single trip and every specific destination. You've got your own passport, right? You've got your own boarding pass right? You've got your own seat right? You have your own credit card? You have your own travel booking right? So where is the specific, personal and unique to you travel safety and security assessment and supporting resources the was created for you and only you….for everywhere you travel? Don’t have one….then you and your company don’t have a travel safety management program, regardless of what you claim or publicly declare. 

Open Booking is code for we gave up and we can’t get you to follow any reasonable business rules. It confirms we are weak and out travel and financial team weren’t able to get executive management, middle management or employees to invest in their own safety, save money or centralize business processes like so many other parts of the business. Go wild! Find an airline offering ridiculous prices on fairs….book it! Found an accommodation option that saves you heaps….book it! Found someone to give you a ride….have at it! Just claim it all back on the one expense form, because that is what is really important to the business. Safety? Security? Risk management? No, that is something different and you booking any thing anywhere and telling us about it long after the fact isn’t a safety, security or legal risk to the company…..said the criminally negligent manager and business owners. We call b*^#$(#@!

Sharing Economy is snappy, tech, youthful and innovative but is it safe? Who cares right? Is your driver a criminal? Is the vehicle you are travelling in insured, road worthy, stolen? Is the cheap room you are staying in have suspicious rooms with locks on the doors that you can’t access? Has the room been used by drug users, which leaves residue in the walls and furnishings and can affect people who stay in the room after they have left? Are there smoke detectors? Is the apartment block safe? Are there hidden cameras? What if you get sick? Are you covered by insurance? Is the wifi connection secure? Can your personal details be stolen or exploited? Can you credit card details be exploited? Are you “safe”? We wager you can measure how much you spent or saved on a trip but can you measure how much more/less safe and secure you are with all these related choices? Can your company? 

Duty of Care is where the real b*^#$(#@! accumulates. Any product with Duty of Care in the title or supporting statement confirms you are dealing with farmers of b*^#$(#@! There is no such thing as a single product or tool the solves this mystical, omnipresent spirit called Duty of Care. What is it? Can you explain in 25 words or less what exactly is Duty of Care? Do you know exactly which law/s it is SUBORDINATE to? Do you know if it is the MOST important legal risk for your business and business travellers? Do you know what international and local laws you need to comply with? Do you know the basics of risk management? Are you compliant? Can you prove travel safety for each traveller or do you have some “one size fits all” service that emails you and all your travellers the same PDF document about the whole country? Very 1990! Do you know exactly who opens these old school emails? Do you know exactly how much the read of it? Do you test them? Do you stop them if they fail this test? Does all this sound too foreign and complicated….yet you and your providers use the term duty of care at any chance you get, just to sound sophisticated.

It is the same reason hair shampoos has “scientifically proven” on the bottle, without explaining exactly what that is or producing this verified scientific research.

Well done, you should spend more time on the late night shopping channels, you are bound to find similar sales pitches that you are susceptible to. 

If your business is demanding service providers provide these catchphrase services….then YOU CREATED the travel safety risk. If ANY vendor offers these and related services or connects directly to them….then the vendor added ANOTHER LEVEL of travel safety risk. If your business travellers are doing other self-determined and unregulated activities when it comes to business travel…then they added YET ANOTHER LEVEL of travel safety risk. Stop kidding yourself. If you are already engaged in one or more of the aforementioned “trends” or consider yourself an early adopter and “liberal” when it comes to business travel bookings and management, you don’t have anything CLOSE to a travel safety management culture or system. You are exporting your business, your managers, your service providers and your travellers to PREVENTABLE RISK. The choice is yours, even if you have already chosen poorly. THINK, LEARN, ASK QUESTIONS and MAKE INFORMED DECISIONS. Don’t just follow the crowd and recite the latest buzzword or trend you heard at the last travel conference, that you were kind of half listening to because you had a big night out the previous night, you want to get in some duty free shopping or you can’t wait to get some free goodies from the vendors giveaway stations that you stuff endlessly into your conference bag.