It may all sound a bit Big Brother like, but having the capacity to track your employees on work trips is actually very important.
Traveller tracking refers to the ability for companies to accurately pinpoint where their people are around the world. It helps them to plan ahead, anticipate danger, and take responsibility for the wellbeing of their travellers. The world as we know it is fraught with risk and, with more and more people travelling overseas for work, the call for monitoring has never been stronger.
Traveller tracking meets this need by providing businesses with a dedicated platform in which to identify problems and act on them. The personal emergency network it offers is built on a combination of risk mitigation and automated reporting which take into account everything from terrorism to natural disasters, as well as local activities, both social and political.
As a leading provider of serviced apartments, we take the safety of our guests seriously and recognise that traveller tracking has a very real role to play in that process. Our new online booking platform, Orbi, which launched last month, is integrated with the traveller tracking services International SOS and Anvil.
At a basic level, Orbi is a dashboard that gives a snapshot of where travellers are in the world. However, it also has the capability to send traveller information to our partnered services, Anvil and International SOS, who, in return, offer real time data.
Hanish Vithal, Our Technology Director, has overseen the creation of Orbi, and is a keen advocate of traveller tracking. For him, traveller tracking is a matter of duty of care - about companies knowing where their employees are and taking responsibility for their safety.
The business risk associated with travel is too strong for companies to turn a blind eye to what’s going on around them, and that’s where intelligent monitoring comes in. Traveller tracking programmes are designed to interpret the world from a risk perspective economically, politically, socially and environmentally.
This information is collated into one easy-to-use platform that provides a comprehensive overview of the world, and delivers live news and emergency updates in the form of email and SMS notifications. Companies using such tools will often have a risk tolerance level in place for business travel which they set, along with an evacuation plan, should anything go wrong.
The success of traveller tracking programmes can be attributed to the way in which they sync up important information like flights, accommodation and airport transfers, all of which can be traced back to a passenger name record or PNR.
The traveller tracking services of the vendors we’re using provide direct, on-the-ground assistance to clients, allowing them to proactively manage any security or medical risks associated with overseas travel. We envisage these programmes being a great success in the months to come, as they have been for other companies.
