Business Travel News - April 17 2017

Global terror events, natural disasters and medical crises have grabbed headlines more frequently over the past few years, mak- ing travel risk management and traveler security a greater part of the travel management conversation. But just where does the industry stand? How far does it still have to go? And how do factors like a program’s size and its frequency of international travel change how organizations address safety and security?

In a BTN survey of 229 travel buyers and managers and corporate safety and security managers, 65 percent said their companies’ attention to traveler safety and travel risk management has increased over the past three years. The larger the company’s travel spend, the more sharply it has honed its attention to travel risk management. Only 52 percent of programs that spend less than $10 million a year on travel increased their travel risk management focus, but of those that spend $50 million or more on travel, 81 percent did so.

CTI senior travel coordinator Lisa Kaffenberger, whose company spends less than $10 million a year on travel, said that disparity is a resource issue, not a reflection of lower risk for smaller programs. Prior to joining CTI, she worked for a company that “pinched pennies until they squealed” and avoided any kind of spend on risk management, even after a terror event occurred within blocks of some of the company’s travelers. “In one of the meetings, I was called Chicken Little for saying we need to get something in place,” she recalled.

Since the terror attacks in Brussels last March, iJet CEO Bruce McIndoe has seen a definite shift in attitudes among corporates, specifically in Europe. “That was the watershed event,” he said. The attacks hit not only the airport but also local transportation. “A lot of companies have local nationals in Brussels, and that made this ... become a people issue, not just a travel issue.” McIndoe believes a major event in the U.S. will have a similar effect on companies in North America.

Half of survey respondents said travelers have expressed increased anxiety levels about safety and security while traveling on business during the past three years. The more a company’s travelers voyage outside the U.S. or the more those travelers experience medical or security disruptions, the more they expressed such anxiety.

Who’s Tasked with
Travel Risk Management?

Within each organization, the
party primarily tasked with traveler
safety and travel risk management
depends on program size. For smaller
programs with less than $10 million
in annual travel spend, the responsibil-
ity rests with travel management in 26
percent of companies. It rests with the traveler
in 21 percent of companies and
with executive management in 14
percent of companies. For larger
midmarket and large programs,
the responsibility more often falls
to corporate security and then to
travel management or to health,
safety and/or risk management.
Senior sourcing manager
Randy Griswold is a key point
person on travel risk management
at Tupperware, which falls in the
category that spends $50 million
or more on travel annually. The
company has a dedicated risk
manager, but Griswold works with
her and the legal department to
improve duty of care for key trip
types and destinations.

Two-thirds of survey respondents have taken on more responsibility for traveler safety and traveler risk management during the past three years. Even in large programs, which more often have internal corporate security or risk departments, travel buyers and managers’ responsibility for travel risk management has increased. “These large companies are starting to address the problem more as a crossfunctional area,” said International SOS EVP Tim Daniel. “Travel managers are being brought into a conversation that has probably already been going on that they just weren’t necessarily part of.”

Primary Travel Risk
Management Partners

Travel management companies are the primary external partner for travel risk management for 32 percent of the survey respondents, while 29 percent rely primarily on full-service travel risk