By 
Introduction
If you know that business travel is not without risks and potential crises, then you should read this article. In this article we are going to talk about crisis management and containment in relation to travelers and travel managers. The purpose of this article is to share with you the collective knowledge on crisis management and significantly improve your ability to identify and manage a crisis, but also improve the efficiency of your business travel.
During this article, I will discuss travel risk myths, crisis management, plans and options so you can immediately compare or improve your own travel risk management system for your travelers or travel management department. trips.
Crisis, by definition, is something you didn’t have a plan for or something you’re not prepared for. Also, it can be a series of events that together create a crisis. Events or problems that occur, for which you have a plan and strategy, are merely an incident.
Crisis Management/Leadership
The first thing is to clarify what is the difference between crisis management and leadership. More importantly, which one is the most important?
Crisis management relates to responding to events that threaten your business, travelers, or travel activity. The event leads and you follow with plans, decisions and actions.
Crisis leadership, on the other hand, is more about getting ahead of events and issues to prevent, manage, and even contain the impact on your business travel or business activities. While management is a part of the demand for leadership, your actions and involvement drive results rather than a more passive wait-and-act approach with pure crisis management.
Crisis leadership is the less practiced of the two, but the more significant in terms of results and reduction of risk and impact. If you take nothing else away from this session, it must be that your focus should always be on Crisis Leadership, not crisis management.
myths
There are many myths and half-truths about crises, disruptions and threats within the travel management industry. Much of this misinformation originated from travelers themselves, the media, travel managers, friends and family, or so-called “experts.”
For example, many travelers and planners focus on terrorism. The reality is that you have a very, very small chance of being exposed or directly affected by a terrorist act. It doesn’t mean you should write it off as a threat entirely, but it shouldn’t dominate your plans or processes if it’s not a proportionate threat to you and your travelers. On the contrary, almost everyone overlooks car accidents. However, they occur much more frequently, can have a devastating effect on travelers, and are the least common scheme within corporate travel management departments.
Travelers and travel managers must be prepared, educated, and have support plans in place for any event that has the potential to delay, disrupt, or harm the traveler or business.
The most common events include:
- motor vehicle accidents
- Airline delays or cancellations
- Airport closures or interruptions
- transportation delays
- bad weather
- sickness and disease
- minor offences
- hotel fires
- political disputes
- Demonstrations and concentrations
motor vehicle accidents within your own country it can be stressful and dangerous, but on a business trip abroad it can be 100 times more challenging and dangerous. Consider language, local authorities, first responders, standard of care, families, and support in your plans and initial response.
Airline delays and cancellations. They happen all the time, but they’re not just an administrative response. You may need to consider security, transportation, quarantines, security threats, government response, and widespread suspension of services to overcome the issue and keep your travelers safe.
Airport closures or interruptions. Faulty systems, electrical issues, threats, weather, construction, etc. can prevent you from making your flight. Consider the impact this has on your plans and how your traveler may need to extend their stay, move to an alternate airport, or find accommodation.
All the others transport delays and interruptions it can create a crisis when everyone no longer has access to trains, buses, key highways, or even water transportation. Have a plan and add it to your immediate decision-making process.
2010 and early 2011 has seen travel of all kinds affected by natural disasters and weather. Weather and natural forces have and will always affect travelers. It does and it will continue to happen. It is very worrying how unprepared travelers and businesses are for volcanic eruptions, typhoons, floods, earthquakes and bad weather in general.
people get sick or feel bad all the time. This is significantly aggravated when traveling. Level of care, language, access, cost, complications, choice, and many other location-based concerns will determine your traveler’s risk. A single plan or “one size fits all” solution will fail and you should be aware of these issues immediately with the start of an affected traveler.
serious crimes they are a reality of any city in the world. However, travelers are rarely aware of the risks and can fall victim to thieves and criminals. Loss of phones, money, and other items may seem less likely to constitute a crisis, but when you’re abroad, injured, or unable to speak the local language, all of these simple events can create serious concern for your business traveler. This can be amplified if you have a senior executive or group of executives affected.
hotel fires and emergencies are more common than most people think. The immediate threat to an individual is obvious enough, but the impact that a lack of accommodation options can have from the temporary or permanent closure of a hotel is of much greater concern. This was graphically displayed during the Mumbai terrorist attacks (as extraordinary as the event was) when most of the best/preferred hotels were not available in a key part of the city. This eliminated thousands of rooms for business travelers and forced many to cancel or significantly alter travel plans just because adequate accommodation options were lacking, whether or not affected by events.
Any event that alters the political stability of a location or region or results in thousands of people on the streets is a risk to your business travel plans and to travelers. They can occur spontaneously or take time to develop. The immediate dangers and ongoing disruption can have a huge impact on your business or traveler.
Again, planning, preparing, and thinking about these issues will greatly reduce the impact and improve your business as well.
Now that we’ve eliminated the most common misconceptions, let’s focus on managing and containing a crisis.
crisis management
The key to successful crisis management is planning, training, plans, decision making and adaptability.
Calendar
Taking into account the issues discussed above, you now have a better idea of how and why planning is important to remove the most emotional issues from the realities of real business threats and events.
Planning must include multiple departments and perspectives to be truly effective. One of the biggest weaknesses I see on a regular basis is departments continuing to manage travel risk across multiple departments with multiple plans. The entrance and the plan must be unified. Depending on the company, this may include travel, security, human resources, finance, marketing, C-suite, and operations managers.
All plans must be continually updated, be location-specific, aid in the decision-making process, and be modular enough for items to be mined quickly and effectively. Modern and effective plans embrace technology. Quick and efficient access to information, coupled with the execution of updates, are the hallmarks of a modern and sustainable plan, regardless of the size of the problem or the company.
Training
No plan is effective without training and rehearsal. Training, whether through simulations, drills, or large-scale live exercises, is vital to the success of any crisis situation. These sessions do not need to be boring or overly complicated, but they should include travel managers and planners along with the more common crisis and emergency managers.
Increasingly, training is becoming a mandatory requirement for key positions and roles. It can be linked to internal HR processes, but must support business objectives and measure how it reduces risk to people, business, brand and travel demands.
While the plan sets the stage for crisis decision making, teams can learn a lot from training about how and when to adapt their plans. How the team interacts, strengths, weaknesses, leaders, followers, limitations, tools and many more planned and surprising results are possible with effective training.
adaptations
No plan will fully write out every event, problem, and option available for every plausible delay, interruption, or crisis in the journey. It must be able to adapt and evolve from the original plan and intent. This can only be achieved with planning, plans and training.
Solutions So what do I need in my plan?
Here is the best travel risk management content for your plan:
- Objective (the most important part of any travel policy)
- References
- Scope
- Legal
- Sure
- Finance
- refunds
- Boundaries
- priority/precedence
- Managing authority(ies)
- situations
The procedure will likely cover:
- Calendar
- Means
- Instruments
- Authority
- executive decision making
- Boundaries
- budgets
- Training
- Compliance
- Pre-trip manager
- providers
- Booking
- Accommodation
- airlines
- Ground transportation
- Protection and security
- Health & Wellness
- Emergency
- POE/Shares on
- Sure
- Trip monitoring/tracking
- Reports
- HOUR
- Rights
- Threat/risk levels
- shelter in place
- Relocations/evacuations
- Administrative Authority
- Check
Don’t forget that your risk assessment should include the key elements:
- Traveler
- To lease
- Exercise
- Support/Resources
- Response
conclusion
There you go. Now that you know what is required, how do you rate your current plans and preparation?
You now have the most relevant issues and areas to focus on that will reduce or contain most of the incidents you may face, your travelers will be safer, your business will be more profitable, and your costs will be contained by reducing your exposure to costly crisis events. .
We’ve debunked popular travel threat myths, identified the difference between crisis management and leadership, outlined plans and options so you can immediately compare or improve your own travel risk management system for your travelers or management department. travel. Review your plans and make immediate improvements.
You will know when you have an effective crisis management system for your travel risk management strategy when you have little or no crisis.
You may have numerous events or incidents but you have a plan, you are prepared and your decision making is quick and consistent. If not, it has failed and will run from crisis to crisis on a regular basis.