Tracking Widespread But Varied

Traveler tracking now is considered standard practice, but the level at which companies employ such services varies widely. Traveler tracking service providers agree, however, that tracking technology is no longer a limiting factor in determining how far a company can push its security reporting processes. Even those corporate travel managers on the leading edge of the traveler tracking movement continue can go only as far as their programs' data quality and travel policy compliance can take them.

At the most basic level, travel managers industrywide have the ability to generate on-demand, pre-trip reports detailing travelers' presumed whereabouts. More progressive buyers, however, often work with travel management companies and third-party security firms to schedule automated, customizable reports from booking data, map traveler locations in interactive, graphic interfaces, and even equip employees with GPS tracking devices.

Most travel managers have, at the very least, the ability to determine a traveler's assumed whereabouts from the point of booking, if that employee was compliant in booking through a company-approved booking channel. All Carlson Wagonlit Travel clients, for example, have access to basic tracking services, said Debbie Westlake, vice president of central operations for the global travel management company.

"There are really two reasons why a company would want traveler tracking services. First, if there's any kind of disaster," Westlake said. "Also, in case an airline goes bankrupt or there's a significant change in corporate airline policy. We want to protect their ticket price and ensure we get them from point A to point B effectively."

Westlake said that traveler tracking services have come a long way since the days before Sept. 11. Though some processes at Carlson, such as the review of traveler itineraries and the distribution of appropriate regional alerts and information, remain manual, the company now can track the greater majority of business travelers online. "It's in the high 90s and obviously our goal is 100 percent. We've made huge strides in that area and we've really worked with our clients and their security departments. We know where their people are at," Westlake said. Still, she added, "We don't know if we don't book."

Even at companies with highly disciplined, compliant traveler populations, booking leakage poses a significant problem for traveler tracking. Caro Cook, senior transportation manager for the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C., said she can track roughly 98 percent of her 2,000 travelers.

"While we track most of our travelers, there are people who are still booking out of the system. We have technical experts who are working with us on a project basis and really aren't thinking about arranging their travel through our approved channels," she said. "Even though we know where they're supposed to be, we don't know where they are necessarily. While it's only a small percentage of the traveling population, if we can't find five travelers during a disaster situation, we're going to spend 80 percent to 90 percent of our time trying to find them, instead of really focusing our energies on dealing with the travelers we can track. The minority of your folks that you can't track end up costing you the most time."

For most travel managers who don't require travelers to call in upon arrival at their destination or hotel, traveler tracking is limited to the assumptions one can make about employee behavior and the data obtained through pre-trip reporting. While Cook said real-time corporate card and hotel reporting systems would go a long way to help travel managers more precisely track travelers, some responsibility must still fall to the traveler, making any tracking system inherently vulnerable to human error. "We go above and beyond to help these people and the expectations of us are very high. Ninety-nine percent of the effort is on the corporate end and we have to rely on our travelers to be highly disciplined when it comes to this," she said. "Unfortunately, it's an issue that we're struggling with and it's generally not highlighted because you're only talking about 1 percent or 2 percent of travelers here."

According to Pat Carey, senior vice president of client data services for mega-agency WorldTravel BTI, Cook is not alone. "Today, the majority of, and darn close to all, corporations are running these reports off of booked travel. The most reliable source of traveler tracking is air bookings—you know what flights they were supposed to be on. Moving up from there you'd get into hotel, which is where you lose a lot of people based on policy compliance," said Carey. "Missing today is the ability to know where the traveler is once they get off the plane and if they're staying at a hotel once they get to their destination. It's partly a policy issue, but it's partly a technology issue."

In addition to pursuing initiatives that will augment corporate spend data, determining, for example, whether a traveler made a purchase at a restaurant or a shop and using that information to fill in itinerary gaps, Carey said that WorldTravel BTI is working on a project that will allow manual entry of precise traveler information. "We're talking about a manual interface that allows travelers or travel arrangers to report and document their whereabouts. This would enable them, even weeks before the trip, to go in and fill out the rest of the itinerary that isn't necessarily available to the TMC, such as meetings, appointments or side trips."

With current technology, said Tim Bone, global sourcing manager for Palo Alto, Calif.-based Agilent Technologies, most travel managers should be able to track the general whereabouts of more than 90 percent of their employees. By driving compliance to tight hotel booking policies, travel managers can use traveler-tracking tools in an even more robust way, gaining greater insight and specificity into employee locations in case of disaster.

Equally important to knowing where travelers are in an emergency, such as a terrorist attack or natural disaster, is the ability to educate employees in advance of travel to global "hot spots" and mitigate the risk involved. "Traveler tracking is critical to the success of risk management," said Bone. "It's critical to have the bigger picture of travel. If you have visibility into traveler behavior, you can work proactively and preventatively. I'm a real proponent for Web-based reporting and live, pretrip analysis."

Bruce McIndoe, CEO of IJet Travel Risk Management, echoed that approach to managing high-risk travel. "People keep using the term traveler tracking, but that's not what this is about. It's risk management. We're trying to understand where are our people going, what are the potential hazards, and what can we do to mitigate those risks. Therefore, we need to know where they are and how to communicate with them," he said.

The graphic interfaces available to most travel managers using enhanced traveler tracking systems, such as interactive traveler mapping tools, may only touch the surface of tracking technology, said McIndoe. "The clients that are really pushing this are taking their travel risk management programs seriously and proactively reviewing any high risk travel. Having somebody looking at this information is the starting point," he said. "Most companies don't look at this information daily. The second step is having documented policy that says what the company should do with the traveler. Maybe I need to have a pre-department briefing or back up communications resources and the company is going to send me with a satellite phone."

Though most of the technology necessary for robust traveler tracking programs is in place, said Hannah Kitt, general manager of CRTravelTracker for London-based security management firm Control Risks Group, it remains a field ripe for further innovation.

Kitt noted that CRG is working to keep up with more progressive users of the company's CRTravelTracker product. "We're able to link in with private jet flight movements, depending on the company and the way the company's set up with those systems," she said. "We're also producing another map that shows them where a company's expats and dependents are based."

Kitt also said clients focused on risk management and traveler tracking are using automated tracking and reporting tools to flag traveler information that may be non-compliant with corporate travel insurance policies. "Many insurance providers will put a cap on how many employees can be on a single flight, and usually that's six," she said. "We can run a report to flag if the company is in breach of that requirement."

Now more than ever, said Marc Casto. president and COO of Santa Clara, Calif.-based travel management company Casto Travel, traveler tracking is also integral to proving the value of a managed program and, in some cases, driven by the potential cost savings that can be realized by the associated risk management. "In many ways, there's been a quantification to the cost of that liability and those who see where the benefit can come from it have been able to get some good strong buy-in from their employees and senior management. For platinum-level tracking and security service, the pricing depends on the size of the company. In almost every situation, the cost-benefit analysis is overwhelmingly favorable," said Casto. "It really does provide the value that the TMC can address for a company. It lets management know that we're more than just a travel transaction processor."