Tag: business travel duty of care

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Business Travel Travel Management

What Are The Benefits Of A Corporate Travel Management Company?

benefits of a travel management company

Why use a travel management company? The benefits of partnering with a corporate travel management company (TMC) include access to a dedicated support team, reduced travel spending, risk management assistance, access to travel technology, enhanced reporting, travel policy creation and integration, and time savings. Read on to see how the corporate travel benefits relate to both the travel manager and the business traveler.

7 Benefits of Using a Corporate Travel Management Company are:

  1. Access to a Dedicated Support Team 
  2. Cost Saving Strategies 
  3. Assistance with Risk Management
  4. Access to Technology and Tools 
  5. Enhanced Reporting
  6. Travel Policy Creation and Integration 
  7. Time Savings for Travel Managers and Traveler

1. Access to a Dedicated Support Team 

Benefits for the Travel Manager 

A corporate travel management company (TMC) should offer its clients a dedicated support team. As a travel manager, you are responsible for creating and maintaining an evolving, complex program. Working with a dedicated support team to help manage your program has many benefits.

First, you can lean on a team of experts. Whether you are creating a new travel program or you are looking to improve your current one, a TMC should be able to make recommendations to help you meet your goals. 

At Christopherson Business Travel (Christopherson), our travel management experts average more than 25 years of experience in business travel. We have helped hundreds of organizations overcome the challenges of business travel and achieve a variety of goals. Not only do we recommend adjustments our clients can make to their programs, but we also specifically point out how we can help them get there. 

Another benefit of having a dedicated support team is that travel managers can rely on experts to provide best practices, industry updates, and seasoned expertise. When a business travel program is outdated, corporate travelers become frustrated. In a dynamic industry that changes rapidly, it’s important for travel managers to stay informed about current and emerging trends.   

Benefits for the Business Traveler

Depending on your booking and service needs, your travelers might have access to a dedicated travel advisor team, a certified online support team, or a combination of the two. By partnering with a corporate travel management company, your business travelers can feel confident knowing they always have trusted experts to turn to 24/7, 365 days a year. 

Having a dedicated support team to assist with travel challenges (like delayed flights or overbooked hotels) significantly improves the overall traveler experience. A TMC also considers traveler preferences and loyalty information when helping them book travel within policy. At Christopherson, your travelers can access a small, dedicated team of travel advisors, so they always know who to contact for support. 

Some TMCs offer support via a call center, which can be frustrating. Call center agents won’t be familiar with your travel preferences or policies, and travelers often don’t receive the level of customer service they deserve. With a dedicated team, you’ll have personalized service and relationships you can count on.

Another benefit of having a dedicated support team is providing VIP services for your executive travelers. At Christopherson, priority response time, requesting special accommodations, and frequent traveler enrollment assistance are just a few of the VIP services we provide.

2. Cost Saving Strategies 

Benefits for the Travel Manager 

Corporate travel management companies help businesses save money by securing the lowest possible rates on travel. Consider the following hypothetical scenario: You reach out to a large hotel chain to negotiate a corporate rate for your business. You attempt to use your predicted number of reservations of 150 nights as leverage for a lower rate. The hotel is able to offer you a discounted rate of $160 a night. 

Now imagine that your corporate travel management company reaches out to the same hotel chain. Instead of 150 nights, your TMC is leveraging the 15,000 nights they anticipate booking among  75 different accounts. It probably comes as no surprise that the hotel is able to offer your TMC an even lower rate of $140 a night.

This example illustrates how working with a TMC increases your buying power and, ultimately, saves you money. Also, by consolidating your hotel spend, a TMC can continue to negotiate lower rates on your behalf year after year.

When it comes to your travel policy, corporate travel management companies make compliance effortless through integrated technology. You can find more details about this below, but one of the reasons travel policies exist is to help manage costs. If your travelers are booking outside of your policy, chances are they are paying more than you would like because they’re not accessing your negotiated rates. 

Next, let’s consider unused airline ticket funds. It’s inevitable that business travelers will have to cancel trips due to scheduling changes, which can potentially leave money on the table. Nearly 10% of all business travel airline tickets go unused. As a travel manager, how do you ensure these unused ticket funds aren’t impacting your bottom line? A TMC can monitor these funds, helping ensure they are used before they expire. 

Christopherson’s AirBank tool is our solution to managing unused airline tickets. AirBank captures those funds in a centralized database and then prompts travelers to reuse them during their next booking. AirBank’s transparency encourages active participation in the reuse of the ticket. This helps prevent loss of funds, cut costs, and eliminate waste. Managers can also access real-time status updates and reports on those unused tickets and the subsequent available funds.

Lastly, when partnering with a corporate travel management company that charges fair and transparent fees, travel managers are able to more accurately budget for their travel program costs. Christopherson’s all-inclusive pricing structure includes all account management, technology, integrated reporting systems, and tools. Some TMCs operate on an “a la carte” model which can quickly become costly and unpredictable making it more difficult to budget.

Benefits for the Business Traveler

By negotiating lower rates, travelers are often able to choose from higher-end hotels than they would be offered without the purchasing power of a TMC. This improves their overall travel experience and makes for happy travelers. 

Unless a tool or system like AirBank is in place, it is easy for travelers to forget about the unused airline tickets they have at their disposal. By providing travelers with money-saving tools like AirBank, travelers can easily cash in on those tickets whether booking online or with an advisor.  

3. Assistance with Risk Management 

Benefits for the Travel Manager 

Businesses have a legal and moral responsibility to keep their travelers safe from threats while they are on the road. Threats can range from something as serious as an outbreak of an infectious disease to losing a passport. Regardless of the circumstance, it’s important that travel managers are aware of threats as soon as possible and have a process in place to keep their travelers safe. 

Assistance with risk management is a huge benefit of working with a corporate travel management company. In a recent study, only half of the travel managers surveyed felt confident that they could locate their travelers within two hours of an emergency. When working with a TMC, travel managers often have access to risk management tools that make them more efficient and effective in times of crisis.

Christopherson’s SecurityLogic tool provides travel managers real-time information regarding which of their team members are currently traveling and where those travelers are

For example, Christopherson’s SecurityLogic tool (available within our AirPortal platform) provides travel managers real-time information regarding which of their team members are currently traveling and where those travelers are. SecurityLogic allows you to quickly see if your travelers are in or will be in an affected area. 

SecurityLogic’s alerts inform travel managers of events that could impact employee travel or compromise their safety, and the Safety Check feature can be used to verify traveler safety. 

Travel Risk Management Tool

Benefits for the Business Traveler

When businesses utilize the full range of corporate travel benefits tools like SecurityLogic provide, travelers feel safe and secure while on the road. When traveling, staying up-to-date on breaking news can be a challenge. Travelers will find comfort in knowing that if they are in or traveling to a potentially dangerous area, their employer is proactively warning them of any threats and has a plan in place to keep them safe. 

4. Access to Technology and Tools 

Benefits for the Travel Manager 

Without updated technology, travel managers are left to manage their travel programs manually using spreadsheets and emails, which can be time-intensive. Integrating best-in-class technology into your travel program is a sure way to save you time and money. 

Corporate travel management partners streamline your processes for requesting travel, approving travel plans, and expense reporting. Christopherson’s AirPortal software platform has your negotiated vendor contracts, travel policy, and travel approval system built-in, ensuring compliant travel booking. All reservations filter into your custom reports and align with your managed travel program. AirPortal can be integrated with valuable benchmarking tools, preferred booking tools, and your HR feed. These technologies make your program efficient and integrated. 

Mobile App For Corporate travel Managers

AirPortal 360 Mobile, the mobile version of our travel manager dashboard, is the first and only comprehensive mobile app for travel managers that allows you to manage your entire travel program from the palm of your hand. With AirPortal 360 Mobile, travel managers can locate travelers in real-time, verify their safety, view itineraries, monitor travel plans, enroll/deactivate travelers, and manage traveler profiles from anywhere.

When working with a corporate travel management partner like Christopherson, you will also have access to tools like Virtual Pay. Virtual Pay eliminates faxing credit card information to hotels by creating single-use credit cards for each hotel booking. The unique card is then sent to the hotel for booking payment. This process helps eliminate traveler reimbursements, improve billing accuracy, and consolidate hotel spend.

Benefits for the Business Traveler

With access to a robust set of tools and technology, travelers are more organized, efficient, and satisfied with their travel program. Booking compliant travel, reimbursing expenses,  and locating travel plans becomes a breeze. Traveler profiles ensure that loyalty programs and preferences are always considered at the time of booking. 

5. Enhanced Reporting 

Benefits for the Travel Manager 

Arguably the most important aspect of any successful program is the ability to access, aggregate, and visualize the data to inform decisions. Some corporate travel management companies offer reporting tools that allow you to view your entire travel program in one location.

Domo, AirPortal’s integrated business intelligence and data visualization program, delivers real-time insights that help you take action and manage a smarter travel program. By aligning metrics that matter to you in one centralized location, you can start to visualize the story your data creates. 

With complete visibility into your travel program, you can quickly identify the departments that spend the most on travel or which hotels are booked the most. This allows you to draw meaningful conclusions that help you improve processes and save money. 

With Christopherson’s ValueLogic technology, travel managers can also assess the ROI of our partnership. Customizable reports show exactly how and where we’re saving our clients’ money.

Benefits for the Business Traveler

While travelers don’t necessarily need access to the full range of reporting options that travel managers need, data from these reports is essential to your travelers’ ability to book within policy, reconcile credit cards, monitor unused tickets, and identify when their profile information needs to be updated. Good data also makes life easier for travelers in the long run. 

6. Helps Create and Maintain Your Travel Policy 

Benefits for the Travel Manager 

When creating or updating a policy, it’s helpful to have experts consult with you on current best practices in your industry. A travel policy should be a living concept and evolve with the industry. Corporate travel management companies help ensure your travel policy is up to date and integrated throughout your booking tools, benchmarking tools, and HR feed. 

Benefits for the Business Traveler

Keeping your travel policy current is a great way to keep your travelers happy. And with policy integration, travelers can be confident their bookings are always compliant. 

7. Saves Travel Managers and Travelers Time 

Benefits for the Travel Manager 

Streamlined and integrated travel programs save travel managers time by keeping them organized and efficient. Whether you’re managing the ins and outs of a large global travel program or have a small team of road warriors, working with a TMC makes your day-to-day efforts easier by helping you implement the processes and plans that will help you reach your goals and support your travelers. 

Benefits for the Business Traveler

Centralized, integrated travel programs save travelers time by simplifying the booking process, making it easy to get travel approved, providing the resources and service needed to make their actual trip a breeze. Gone are the days of frantic inbox searches for flight plans, not knowing whether your booking falls within policy or where your frequent flyer number is. Travelers can spend time actually doing what they were hired to do rather than wasting time weighing the costs of different flight options or figuring out logistics of an upcoming trip. A travel management company has the expertise they can rely on.

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Business Travel Travel Technology

Christopherson Business Travel and your Risk Management Program

I recently had the pleasure of hearing Charles Brossman, a prominent risk management author and consultant speak at GBTA- North Carolina’s Education Breakfast. His informal but informative conversation educated our group on the legal terms associated with risk management. These terms, coupled with real- life examples, left us thinking about ways to improve the risk management programs for our own organizations.

How Christopherson provides risk management security

Guess what? By partnering with Christopherson as your Travel Management Company, you already have the shoe on the right foot. Housed in our AirPortal 360 platform, SecurityLogic allows travel managers can access real-time threats. This includes security updates, weather, traffic, airport delays, and disaster alerts. These alerts can be automatically pushed to travelers via text and email. With the intuitive Safety Check feature, you can request safety verification from your travelers, from anywhere in the world. Once activated, the traveler will immediately be messaged. Knowing that you are worried about their safety and they can also quickly respond. Additionally, SecurityLogic provides multiple global map overlays. All travel information is geocoded to street-level accuracy. So you can zoom into any country, city, or street to find risks near your travelers.
Learn more about how Christopherson can assist with your duty of care and risk management goals.

Charles Brossman is the author of the book “Building a Travel Risk Management Program: Traveler Safety and Duty of Care for Any Organization”. For more information on Charles Brossman and his services, see his website.

Christopherson Business Travel provides full-service travel management for companies. With advanced technology and customized service, we are one of the top TMCs in the nation. Contact us to learn how we can save your company time and money on future travel.

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Business Travel Travel Management Travel Technology

Christopherson Business Travel Helps with Duty of Care

Business travel has become an integral part of conducting modern day business. But one factor that often goes unnoticed in the trip is the duty of care responsibility for the employee. Even companies with a good track record in business travel safety and security often have gaps in securing the well-being of their business traveler. While a gap in itself might seem small, any oversight could be perceived as negligence should something catastrophic happen. So how can companies be prepared for the unpredictable while their employees are traveling on their behalf?

SecurityLogic, our solution for duty of care concerns

Christopherson Business Travel’s duty of care tool, SecurityLogic, solves many of these open-ended questions facing duty of care responsibility for traveling employees. SecurityLogic helps travel managers access real-time security, weather, disaster, or delay alerts that may effect their travelers. Displayed on an easy-to-understand map, they can easily see where their travelers have been, are currently, and will be next. Creating insightful actionable intelligence, travel managers can anticipate any issues that may effect their employees.  Almost more exciting, this data can be pushed to business travelers themselves via text and/or email. SecurityLogic can be customized by department or user, limiting or permitting access to certain travelers or traveler groups.

SecurityLogic also has a two-way check-in feature called Safety Check that allows travel arrangers to verify the safety of their business travelers. Travelers respond to the Safety Check request via text message or email, and SecurityLogic geocodes their location.

Recently, in response to a client need, Christopherson incorporated the ability to track large groups–where they are going and who is part of the group–via special icons on the SecurityLogic map.

By continuously enhancing our proprietary technology, Christopherson works diligently to improve peace of mind for duty of care responsibilities. Contact us to learn more about how Christopherson Business Travel tends to very specific needs of businesses.

 

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Travel Management Travel Technology

Reduce Business Travel Risk with SecurityLogic®

SecurityLogic is a duty of care assistance tool, accessible via desktop, smartphone, or tablet, that provides travel managers the ability to verify safety and location of business travelers.
SecurityLogic is a duty of care assistance tool, accessible via desktop, smartphone, or tablet, that provides travel managers the ability to verify safety and location of business travelers.

With many companies expanding their travel programs domestically, multi-nationally, or globally, business travel continues to become more and more complex, especially when it comes to risk and safety. Christopherson Business Travel understands the stress of fulfilling those duty of care requirements and provides valuable technology to help to reduce business travel risk.

Christopherson’s duty of care tool SecurityLogic®, allows travel managers to locate travelers quickly and push alerts to communicate instructions or information to travelers via text or email in emergency situations. Unlike other disaster recovery products, SecurityLogic continuously pulls data from the Global Distribution System (GDS), thereby providing real-time accuracy.

SecurityLogic also provides access to multiple global map overlays and because all travel information is geocoded to street level accuracy, travel managers can easily zoom in on any country, city, or street to find their business travelers anywhere in the world.

As an extra level of safety and communication, SecurityLogic has a two-way check-in feature called Safety Check, which allows travel managers to send travelers a check-in message to verify their safety. Upon receipt, the traveler simply responds to the message one of two ways: “I’m safe.” or “I need assistance” (with an additional field to explain their need). SecurityLogic then geocodes the traveler’s location using the GPS coordinates provided by the traveler’s cell phone.

SecurityLogic delivers the following key benefits:

  • Quickly locate travelers by name, travel date, and/or location
  • Request verification of safety and location from travelers through the check-in feature
  • Get real-time info on weather, airport delays, security, and disaster alerts
  • Push alerts directly to travelers via text and email
  • Use map overlays to view weather, traffic, and travelers anywhere in the world
  • Quickly zoom from global to street-level view

Travel managers can also find confidence in Christopherson’s service which is available 24/7/365. This means your business travelers can call us at any time to make changes to itineraries and get travel assistance in the event of an emergency or unexpected delay.

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Business Travel Travel Management Travel Technology

Christopherson Business Travel Offers a Solution to Low Hotel Attachment Rates

Hotel AttachmentTravel managers and TMCs have always struggled with low hotel attachment rates, which the industry estimates to be less than 50%. This is problematic because the results of low hotel attachment rates are incomplete travel itineraries, weakened vendor negotiations, and compromised duty of care.

Christopherson Business Travel introduced a holistic solution to the problem at the 2015 GBTA Convention in Orlando, Florida–Hotel Attachment.

Hotel Attachment, a hotel compliance system, meets the needs of the travelers who want an acceptable hotel included in every itinerary. It also meets the needs of travel managers who want savings, knowledge of where travelers are in order to fulfill duty of care responsibilities, and the ability to satisfy the company’s commitments with contracted hotel vendors.

Hotel Attachment identifies itineraries with missing hotel bookings and provides the traveler with four options to close that gap:

1. Make a hotel reservation

  • For agent bookings – traveler is presented  with a form that connects to their booking agent
  • For online bookings – refers the traveler back to their online booking tool

2. Request another reminder for a later date

  • Presents a calendar to select date of next reminder

3. Attach a hotel reservation made outside the system to the itinerary

  • Pre-populates dates in a template based upon air reservation
  • Presents a map to zoom in a locate their hotel
  • Connects to Christopherson’s proprietary database to ensure correct hotel and GPS location coordinates

4. Waive the need for a hotel reservation

  • Requires an explanation as to how they’re meeting their housing needs

With Hotel Attachment’s digital reminders, companies can ensure trip plans are complete and hotel compliant prior to travel.

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Business Travel Travel Technology

The Benefits of Using Christopherson’s Duty of Care tool, SecurityLogic®

SecurityLogic® is one of Christopherson Business Travel’s premier travel technology tools that allows you to locate and alert your company’s travelers anywhere in the world, at any time.

For example, let’s say I just landed in Paris (from Los Angeles) and my assistant (who is flying in from Atlanta) is meeting me at the airport. My business partner left this morning from Beijing to join us, but is delayed in Jakarta. Two of our executive board members are in the air from Dallas to meet up with us, and the attorney is en-route to the Chicago airport to catch his flight to join us for dinner.

After a week of business in Paris, we are all off to a trade show in London, and then onto Dubai for a 6-hour board meeting. Because of our hectic trip, we decide to make a change on our return to be rerouted through Japan, in order to spend a few days relaxing and enjoying the Tokyo night life.

Keeping track of all the variables, flights, cities, and travelers for such a trip could be confusing and time-consuming. But with Christopherson’s SecurityLogic, each traveler has been tracked every step of the way. Additionally, if our travel manager wonders if we are okay at any point in the trip, they can send us a Safety Check alert that will come straight to our phones, to which we can then respond with a yes or no depending on our situation and needs. Ultimately, SecurityLogic® brings peace of mind to the traveler, colleagues, and loved ones at home.

To learn more about this and other tools that can enhance your company’s business travel program, contact one of our executives for more information.

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Business Travel Travel Management Travel Technology

Business Travel Duty of Care: What is it and why does it matter?

SecurityLogic
Christopherson’s SecurityLogic® technology helps companies fulfill their duty of care responsibilities.

du·ty

noun \?dü-t? also ?dyü-\ : a moral or legal obligation, responsibility or commitment

care

noun \?ker\ : effort made to do something correctly, safely, or without causing damage

“Duty of Care” is currently a popular topic in the travel industry for important reasons:

  • The world can be a dangerous place with many risks
  • Organizations have a responsibility to keep their travelers informed and safe
  • Organizations are a target for lawsuits when things do not go as planned
  • Providing critical information and support to your travelers is good customer service and good business

At Christopherson Business Travel, we believe that duty of care consists of four key elements:

1)  Pre-trip –

Or in other words, the “need to know before you go” information

  • What are the current conditions at the proposed destination?
  • Is is safe to go? Are there Weather, Political, Security, Natural Disasters, or Health issues?
  • Does the traveler need any special documents to travel, i.e. passport, visa, immunizations?
  • Will the traveler be traveling with others on this trip for safety and/or support?

2)  En-route –

Where you keep your travelers informed of current issues while en-route

  • Have circumstances at the destination changed since the travelers departure?
  • Are there updates on developing issues that need to be monitored?
  • Are all of your travelers safe and accounted for?
  • Do you have multiple ways to communicate with your travelers, i.e. text, email, phone?

3)  Emergency Response –

Supporting or evacuating your travelers when circumstances deteriorate

  • Do you have a plan for support or evacuation of travelers in need?
  • Do your travelers have the training/skills needed in an emergency situation?
  • Do you have access to the traveler’s emergency contact info, i.e. family, friends, etc.?

4)  Post Trip –

Documenting and reporting your duty of care activities

  • Do you have documentation showing you have met your ‘Duty of Care’ to your travelers?
  • Do you have the ability to report upstream to senior management?
  • Do you review past situations for opportunities to improve your program?

If you need help determining and fulfilling your duty of care responsibilities, please contact a Christopherson Business Travel Account Manager. We help companies of all sizes meet this key responsibility and have the tools and expertise to help you be successful.

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Business Travel Travel Technology

Lost in Space – Why every company needs to know where their travelers are.

SecurityLogic
SecurityLogic® keeps track of your travelers around the world, 24 hours-a-day, every day of the week.

As I was on my flight to New York this week, I couldn’t help but think about Malaysia Air Flight 370. What would it feel like to be on a plane that vanishes from site? What would, or could, I do to communicate with my family or company?

So far, 2014 has been plagued with numerous weather delays and flight cancellations, exceeding both 2012 and 2013 combined. But weather delays and interruption of travel is something we are all accustomed to from time to time. A plane disappearing with 239 passengers, political unrest in many areas around the world, and the possible threat of a new Cold War brings duty of care and the risk management of your travelers to a heightened focus for many companies.

Did you know that Christopherson Business Travel can provide your travel manager and risk department the latest in tracking technology? SecurityLogic® is a dynamic reporting and communication tool created to facilitate your company’s duty of care responsibilities. With customized search options that allow you to quickly locate travelers by name, date, and/or location, SecurityLogic also provides real-time weather, airport delay, security, and disaster alerts that you can then easily push to travelers via text and email. This technology truly keeps your travelers from being Lost in Space.

To learn more about this valuable business travel technology tool, simply contact a Christopherson executive.

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Business Travel Travel Management

It’s 10 PM. Do you know where your travelers are?: 10 Duty of Care Best Practice Recommendations

At a time when there were no cell phones, the public announcement “It’s 10 p.m. Do you know where your children are?” appeared before the 10 o’clock news as a reminder to parents that children should be home prior to curfew. During my high school years, when I was out with friends, we would often joke “It’s 10pm. Do you know where your parents are?” Those same parents who used to be in for the night, were enjoying a new social life of their own, showing that life in America was changing.

Fast forward to today’s world, where information is readily available, and apply the same principle to your company’s travel program. For example, let’s say there’s been a disaster, you hear about it and you wonder, do I know where my travelers are? Are any of them currently traveling in the affected area? If so, are they okay? How do I reach them? Do I know how to contact their family members or friends?

What is duty of care?

Duty of care–we’ve all heard of it, but what does it really mean? A basic definition is to ensure that a person does not suffer any unreasonable harm or loss. If your actions as an employer do not meet the standard duty of care, then you are considered negligent and a lawsuit may result.

Corporations are responsible for their employees when they travel, particularly when and if they travel in a harmful situation. This can become challenging when 1) corporations don’t keep track of their employees, and 2) employees don’t tell anyone where they are going. On one of my business trips I called home and my family asked, “How’s Boise?”  My reply was, “I’m in Portland.” I certainly failed in communicating to anyone my exact plans.

Organizations are definitely doing a better job at making sure they know where their employees are traveling. Employees need to understand how important it is for the company to know where they are for safety reasons. A benchmarking study was done by International SOS on duty of care. A list of best practices were derived from gaps they found in the study.

10 Duty of Care Best Practice Recommendations

  1. Increase awareness
  2. Plan with key stakeholders
  3. Expand policies and procedures
  4. Conduct due diligence
  5. Communicate, educate and train
  6. Assess risk prior to every employee trip
  7. Track traveling employees at all times
  8. Implement an employee emergency response system
  9. Implement additional management controls
  10. Ensure vendors are aligned

Whether you are an organization, travel manager, or traveler, find a tool that best suits you to keep track of your whereabouts. There are many apps, agency tools, and third party vendors who can help in keeping track of employee travel. If you haven’t done so, give it a try. You will sleep much better at night knowing where your travelers are.

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Business Travel Travel Technology

AirPortal 360™ is a Travel Management Nerve Center

Effective travel management must meet and balance the needs of two key groups:

  1. Travel managers, who need to save their company money on travel and who also have duty of care responsibilities
  2. Travelers, who want service, safety, and convenience.

AirPortal 360 is a travel management nerve center.
AirPortal 360 is a travel management nerve center.

Our objective at Christopherson Business Travel, when we developed AirPortal 360, was to meet the requirements of both groups. While our key stakeholders are the companies for whom we manage travel because they pay for our services, we must also take good care of the travelers, in order to be successful.

AirPortal 360 is the solution that provides companies:

  1. One platform integrating full-service and online travel management.
  2. A 360° real-time view of their entire travel program providing high-level “situational awareness and increased visibility.
  3. Actionable intelligence allowing travel managers, our account managers, and our agents to respond to our clients’ needs.

The key components of our proprietary AirPortal 360 platform are:


AirPortal 360™ Dashboard

  • Provides SecurityLogic heat map on the homepage, plus customizable widgets to provide awareness and actionable intelligence

PolicyLogic™

  • Create a travel management policy to monitor and manage your travel program
  • Manage preferred vendor relationships and ensure compliance to help save money

ProfileLogic®

  • Set up a company and their travelers’ profiles and optionally organize them by division, department, and team

Airtinerary®

  • Access past, present, and future traveler itineraries

SecurityLogic®

  • Handle duty of care by identifying who, when, and where travelers are, and respond appropriately when there is an incident that requires action

AirBank®

  • Increase savings through recovery and management of unused airline tickets

DataLogic®

  • Provide real-time access and on-demand reporting of travel program data

My Travel™ Dashboard

  • Provide travelers with the information they need before, during, and after their trips

To learn more about how Christopherson’s AirPortal 360 platform can benefit your company’s travel program and save you time and money on business travel, please contact one of our executives.

 

 

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Business Travel Travel Technology

When it comes to business travel–what is the value of timely information?

Screen shot 2013-07-08 at 4.57.04 PMRecently, I traveled to our San Francisco office, where I followed my typical routine. I flew into the Oakland airport, rented a car, and headed north towards the Bay Bridge. While driving, I received a mobile travel alert from SecurityLogic®, one of Christopherson’s business travel technology tools, letting me know that the Bay Bridge was closed for several days while they connected a new section.

Receiving this information in a timely manner allowed me to modify my schedule and avoid the traffic jams I knew would result from the closure of this key artery in and out of San Francisco. Later, when I spoke with other business travelers I learned that they had been stuck in these traffic jams for hours–I just smiled to myself!

As the COO of Christopherson Business Travel, I have the opportunity to work closely with our talented development team as we create products and services for our clients. We focus our efforts in three core areas: traveler safety, cost savings, and accurate reporting.

While all three of these areas are essential elements of a successfully managed travel program, we feel particularly compelled to provide our clients with tools that support the safety, security, and comfort of the many thousands of travelers that we have on the road at any given time. These road warriors play an essential role in growing both the U.S. and global economies on which we all rely. So, we will continue our commitment to provide our clients and their business travelers with the information they need to make their travels safe and secure.

If you have not activated your SecurityLogic traveler alert system, contact your Christopherson Account Manager to discuss your configuration options, then flip the switch, and start providing your travelers with the timely information they need.

While the alert I received was simply a low, caution level alert that spared me from spending several hours in traffic, it may well have been informing me about a much more serious situation.

Safe travels,

Matthew J Cameron

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Business Travel Travel Industry Travel Management Travel Technology

Christopherson Business Travel Releases AirPortal 360™ Mobile: The First Comprehensive Mobile App for Corporate Travel Managers

AirPortal 360 Mobile is the first mobile app that allows corporate travel managers the ability to manage their program wherever, whenever.
AirPortal 360 Mobile is the first mobile app that provides corporate travel managers the ability to manage their company’s travel program–wherever, whenever.

Christopherson Business Travel will soon be launching AirPortal 360™ Mobile, the first comprehensive mobile app to provide corporate travel managers the ability to manage their company’s travel program from the palm of their hand—wherever, whenever. (Read the full press release here.)

As the mobile version of Christopherson’s intelligent travel manager dashboard, AirPortal 360 Mobile delivers a collection of essential management tools that allow travel managers, and other key players in a company’s travel program, to maintain and manage their duty of care responsibilities, ensure better policy compliance, keep track of travelers and their itineraries, and more.

In the recent Business Travel News (BTN) article, “Assessing Mobile Travel Services and Strategies,” BTN stated that, “However nimble a corporate travel program might be, changes in its culture inevitably occur more slowly than did the rapid, massive embrace by business travelers of mobile technology.”

At Christopherson, we have noticed that while mobile technology innovation has progressed rapidly for travelers, there has not been much innovation when it comes to mobile technology for travel managers. The mobile apps that do exist for that market only provide a third-party software developer’s niche service, and until now, there have been no comprehensive mobile apps to help travel managers oversee their entire travel program. AirPortal 360 Mobile is the solution to that void.

Christopherson has long been a leader in adopting mobile business travel technology, as evidenced by the fact that we were the first travel management company to fully integrate TripIt’s interactive trip management services for all Christopherson business travelers. This occured three years ago, prior to Concur buying TripIt. (Read TripIt’s full press release here.)

Christopherson will be unveiling AirPortal 360 Mobile at the 2013 Global Business Travel Association convention, in San Diego, CA, August 4-7. The app is first available to iPhone users, and the Android version will be released in September 2013.

We invite you to stop by our booth (#3625) to take a look and demo the app for yourself.
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