Managing Risk in an Uncertain World

It’s been almost 17 years since the September 11th terrorist attacks forever changed the lives of all Americans, altered the world’s most famous skyline, shocked people all over the globe and began a total transformation of the way we travel. Virtually everyone born before 1990 knows exactly where they were when they heard about the planes crashing into the Twin Towers. We have heard stories of the near misses—of people who overslept and missed their flight, people who called in sick that day. But as we know, more than 3,000 people went to work, were on time for their flights and perished on that fateful day.

On that day, the Federal Aviation Administration grounded nearly 4,000 airplanes and diverted more than 230 international flights to Canada impacting millions of people. Train service on the East Coast came to a halt. People were stranded in airports and in train stations all across the country, looking to rent cars and carpool with strangers to get back home. There weren’t as many cell phones then as there are now and there also wasn’t such an expansive telecommunications infrastructure; as a result many people were effectively cut off from their fellow workers and their loved ones.   

Unfortunately, the horrors of 9/11 - and every terrorist incident afterwards - are no longer just material from Tom Clancy novels. As we have seen all too frequently, these incidents have now become an ongoing issue affecting the global travel industry. And there are plenty of other unforeseen disruptive events – earthquakes and weather-related incidents that require significant re-routing, just to name a few. Each of us likely has an incident that we will never forget – years later, we can recall with stunning clarity exactly where we were and what we did on that day.

But in the moment itself, did your company know where you were? Would your company know where you are today in a time of crisis?

According to GBTA research, 30 percent of U.S. travel managers don’t know how long it would take to locate their employees in a crisis. That percentage is far too high, even allowing for the challenges of the ever-shifting global travel landscape.

Consider the tremendous changes that have affected the travel industry in the last few years alone – let alone in the past 17 years. Virtually everyone now has a smart phone (or multiple phones), making it easier to say in touch with home and work. Those phones increasingly are information portals. One can find all sorts of information with a few clicks. You can change and book tickets from your phone. You can pay for everything with a virtual wallet. Cell phones’ capabilities are seemingly endless – and within a matter of a few months, the newest version will make what currently exists immediately out of date. It’s incredibly difficult to keep up with that type of change.

While these changes make travelers’ lives much more convenient, they also increase the danger associated with business travel. Ironically, the more flexibility the traveler has to make and change his/her own arrangements, the greater the possibility that their company will not know where their employee is at any given time. For example, I might suddenly change plans and book a train for a few-hour meeting in New York without notifying my company. My company would assume that I was still in Philadelphia and wouldn’t think to contact me if there was suddenly a crisis in New York City.

It’s remarkably common for travelers to change their plans without notifying their travel managers. A recent GBTA study found that more than three out of five business travelers booked travel outside of company channels in the past year. This isn’t done out of spite, but rather convenience to accomplish a business objective. Travelers realize the potentially negative ramifications of these actions. Our study found that half of travelers agree that not booking their travel through company channels can jeopardize their safety by making it more difficult for company officials to locate or contact them in an emergency.

This obviously raises many red flags around duty of care – challenges that both travel managers and travelers acknowledge. How can travel managers use technology to better know the whereabouts of their traveler? Do travelers need to take more responsibility? Is that feasible given the myriad of scenarios and options that the traveler faces, and the quick decisions he/she often needs to make while on the road? How can this process be improved without being unduly burdensome and inefficient?

There are many things we can do as an industry to keep the business traveler safe in this ever-changing environment. Education is critical. GBTA’s primary goal is to help business travel professionals do their jobs as effectively and easily as possible. GBTA has many resources available to our members. We have a Risk Committee composed of travel professionals and third-party risk management specialists. It provides resources and guidance to help GBTA and its members create and improve travel risk management programs.

GBTA also regularly posts informative blog posts on best practices and how to keep travelers safe. We host numerous webinars on traveler safety. For example, in 2017, we offered a series of monthly webinars, the Risk Radar series, which covered topics such as how to deal with the travel and electronics bans and how to prepare for a live shooter scenario. We also offer research and education sessions at our events hosted throughout the world to keep you prepared for tomorrow’s challenges.

Safety can never be guaranteed, but we can work to remove certain risks and establish certain safeguards that will allow the travel manager to do their job while still allowing the business traveler to do theirs. Stay tuned to the GBTA Blog for the latest information on risk management and duty of care.