Effective strategies for business travel risk management  

Business travel today faces unpredictable hazards: political instability, health crises, natural disasters, or cybersecurity threats.

Travel bookers, executive assistants, and leaders must anticipate both obvious and hidden risks to ensure travel safety for your teams.

A robust travel risk management programme combines policy, scenario planning, technology, and expert support so organisations can act swiftly in a crisis, to protect both employees and business continuity.

What is travel risk management?

Travel risk management identifies, monitors, and mitigates risks throughout the business travel experience. It safeguards employees, ensures regulatory compliance, and maintains business continuity by combining travel policies, employee training, technology, and robust crisis protocols.

Risk can come from anywhere - flight delays, medical emergencies, geopolitical tension, cyber threats, or severe weather. Travel risk management starts by first assessing your organisation’s risk tolerance and mapping out potential threats. This enables you to build effective contingency plans and train employees for incidents ranging from minor disruptions to major crises and security threats.

Managing travel risk is more than a set of policies; it’s a commitment to traveller safety, upholding your legal duty of care, and ensuring business runs smoothly, even when plans change unexpectedly.

For UK-based organisations, this means staying current with the latest travel alerts from trusted sources like the UK Foreign Office travel advice, and partnering with travel experts like Corporate Traveller UK.

At a glance:

• Identify potential travel risks
• Categorise risks (red/amber)
• Establish crisis response plans
• Use technology for real-time monitoring and travel risk intelligence
• Train staff on high-risk business travel protocols

How can companies assess travel risks?

Companies assess travel risks by evaluating their popular business trip destinations, traveller profiles, and operational exposure. This risk monitoring helps organisations identify both visible and hidden security risks, allowing for data-driven, informed decisions and effective planning.

Don't think that just because you don't travel to high-risk destinations, this does not apply to your organisation. Managing travel risk is crucial for popular business trip city locations.

You can work with your corporate travel agent to assess potential risks and understand how other UK organisations support employee safety. Utilise their frameworks, tools and expertise to understand what a travel risk management solution could look like.

To streamline your travel risk assessment, use this practical checklist:

1. Review destination-specific hazards: Research political instability, health issues, adverse weather, and local laws. For example, our clients in the film and television sector often visit remote or high-risk locations. They require stringent risk assessments, clear communication lines, and 24/7 support.
2. Assess traveller vulnerability: Examine each traveller’s role, experience level, and unique needs.
3. Identify operational impacts: Consider how business travel disruptions may affect the day-to-day running of your business, your supply chain and IT systems.
4. Categorise risks: Use a red, amber, or green system to prioritise and tailor your response actions.
5. Plan mitigation measures: Implement solutions like travel insurance, alternative routes, and local assistance resources. Depending on your organisation's risk profile, you may conduct scenario planning, creating crisis playbooks or partner with a specialist travel risk management provider.
6. Engage relevant departments: Collaborate with HR, IT, and Security to ensure all risk angles are covered.

Integrating these steps with digital tools, such as our Travel Policy Builder, makes risk management more efficient and reliable. For industry best practice and compliance guidance, consult resources from the UK Health and Safety Executive.

What are the top travel risks for UK business travellers?

Risks include political unrest, natural disasters, health crises, cybersecurity threats, and personal incidents such as theft or medical emergencies. Awareness of both predictable and hidden risks is key when travelling employees are getting started with their travel itineraries.

Travel risk categories

How do you establish clear communication during a crisis?

Centralised, timely, and empathetic communication is essential for managing a travel crisis effectively. By using templates, designated channels, and cross-department coordination, you reduce confusion and enable a swift response that prioritises traveller wellbeing.

Communication must balance detail with clarity. Key steps include:

1. Assign crisis leads from key departments such as IT, HR, Security, and Finance. These leads ensure every aspect of communication and support is covered. Messages should be centralised through a single platform to provide clarity and make updates easy to track. Pre-prepared templates for common scenarios help standardise responses and ensure nothing important is missed.
2. Centralise messages through a single platform. Using pre-approved templates, designated channels, and coordinating across departments helps to minimise confusion and support a swift, calm response.
3. Sync with your travel management company. Your corporate travel agent will have out-of-hours teams who are well-versed in managing emergency support for business travel. They may form part of your communication plan.
4. Create adaptable templates. Prepare messaging guides and templates for various crisis situations. These should be easy to customise for travellers, internal teams, and external stakeholders, saving critical time in an emergency.
5. Tailor messaging for travellers, internal teams, and external stakeholders. Strike the right balance: your communication should be detailed enough for safety, but clear and concise to avoid overwhelming recipients.
6. Update frequently, avoiding overload. Stay mindful of message volume so that critical updates are not lost. A small delay in the flow of information can escalate a crisis, so you need to be transparent.

Example: Crisis messaging

How can companies prepare for travel crises?

Companies prepare for travel crises through scenario planning, crisis playbooks, employee training, and partnerships with corporate travel agents or travel risk specialists. A proactive approach ensures your organisation can respond swiftly and effectively when disruptions occur.

Key steps to prepare your business include:

1. Develop contingency plans for likely scenarios, such as natural disasters, political unrest, or a medical evacuation.
2. Assign specific roles and responsibilities for crisis response, ensuring contacts from HR, IT, Security, and Finance are involved. Include your corporate travel agent in those plans, as they can support teams with new travel plans, and are used to managing crises.
3. Conduct regular simulations and tabletop exercises to test your plans and identify weaknesses.
4. Create and maintain clear communication templates and escalation protocols to ensure timely updates.
5. Leverage technology for real-time alerts and traveller tracking to monitor situations as they unfold.
6. Perform after-action reviews following any incident to refine and improve your crisis management procedures.  

Case Study: Getting a traveller to safety during 9/11

When a UK traveller was in New York during the events of 9/11, her safety and well being were front of mind for our team. Initially, the team booked a hotel for 10 days outside of central New York, and arranged transport and other amenities to ensure she was comfortable. She received clear guidance throughout from the team. At Corporate Traveller, while this is out of the ordinary, it's all in a day's work for our team, who stay focused on keeping our clients' employees safe.

How can technology support travel risk management?

Technology supports travel risk management by providing traveller tracking, real-time alerts, dashboards, and integrated communication tools. These systems allow you to respond rapidly to incidents, improve duty of care, and ensure compliance.

You can access these tools through a specialist travel risk management provider or as part of a package from a corporate travel agent.

Integrating these tools with your corporate travel booking platform gives you a comprehensive view of travel risks. This helps travel bookers and executive assistants respond with accuracy and agility, protecting travellers while keeping the company informed.

How can UK companies learn from real-world cases?

These stories demonstrate the practical benefits of effective travel risk management, such as improved duty of care, faster response times, and better coordination during crises. Analysing these scenarios provides valuable lessons for refining your own strategies.

Key takeaways for resilient travel risk management

Resilience relies on risk identification, agile responses, centralised communication, technology use, and continuous review.

• Identify both obvious and hidden risks to ensure proactive planning.
• Build agile, scenario-based response frameworks to address changing situations quickly and effectively.
• Conduct thorough risk assessments for each trip, tailoring actions to the specific context and traveller needs.
• Establish centralised, clear communication channels so all stakeholders are informed and aligned during disruptions.
• Leverage technology for real-time monitoring and alerts, increasing visibility and speeding up response times.
• Regularly review and adapt policies and procedures to keep pace with evolving threats and regulatory changes.

Ready to build a more resilient travel programme? Here’s a couple of ways to get started:

Download our 5-step crisis management checklist for a concise, actionable guide to prepare your travel programme for any unexpected business travel-related incidents. This checklist is designed to help you enhance travel security, streamline processes, and confidently manage future risks. 

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Explore Melon, our travel booking platform, with an interactive, self-paced tour. See how our technology can enhance your travel risk management efforts. 

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Book a meeting with us to answer any questions on how we couple help you enhance your travel programme as your corporate travel agent. 

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