Evolving Business Travel Risk Management in a Changing World

It’s not just climate change that hinders business travel plans; volatile world leaders, geopolitical tension, and operational disruptions on the ground can turn a routine business trip into a complex crisis.

According to Zurich Insurance Group’s research published in 2026, four in five business travellers experienced disruptions in 2025, with more than half encountering a serious incident or emergency while abroad.

These unforeseen events could be quite distressing, if it were not for workable travel risk management frameworks that are adaptable to the specific environment in which your employees operate. You want a framework that anticipates disruptions, rather than reacts to them.

What’s in a Pre-Travel Risk Assessment?

Most travel risk assessments tick the corporate boxes, the ones that protect the company. However, the assessments that protect employees ask much harder questions. A thorough assessment should look beyond the destination’s general reputation and more specifically at the conditions of travel.

• Destination-specific security conditions: FCO travel advisories cover countries in broad strokes, but when was the last time you were in a country where conditions were entirely consistent? Conditions can vary significantly by region, city, and even neighbourhood, so assessments should be specific to your employee’s precise destination.
• Health and entry requirements: Vaccination requirements, visa conditions, and health screening measures at borders change frequently, especially if there are major events on the go. You need to ensure that your travel manager always has the latest information at hand, to avoid any surprises.
• Individual traveller risk profile: Some travellers are unfortunately considered higher risk candidates than others. For example, women travelling alone, LGBTQIA+ employees, or those with specific health conditions can become potential soft targets and require a different risk level classification for certain destinations.
• Destinations too dangerous: If the risk assessment shows the conditions are too dangerous for travel, then blanket travel restrictions need to be implemented.

Your business wants to be proactive, instead of reactive. A properly done pre-travel assessment doesn’t slow the trip down, but it does ensure that travellers depart with a clear picture of what they can expect at their destination. It also gives you time to make alternative plans, in the event that the trip looks like it may become problematic.

Escalation and Evacuation: Better to Have a Plan and Not Need It…

London Loves Business research has revealed a 17% increase in emergency evacuations and repatriations. This isn’t a reason to avoid your travel plans, but it is imperative to make sure your evacuation plan works.

• Defined escalation tiers: There are clear differences between monitoring a situation, an active alert, and an immediate evacuation trigger. These differences must be well defined in your policy, as it gives travel managers an essential frame of reference in pressure situations.
• Communication protocols: Lines of communication must always be open, so employees know who to contact, through which channel, and what to do if that channel isn’t available. For instance, SMS still works when the internet and email don’t.
• Medical evacuation and repatriation coverage: Experience in business travel has taught us never to skimp on travel insurance. Ensure your travel insurance policy includes everything, especially emergency medical evacuation.
•  Rehearsed, not just documented: Before any employee goes on a trip, ensure you have a session that goes through the evacuation plan. All travellers must know and understand the plan, so they can react without panicking in an emergency.

The goal is to reach a point where, if a situation develops, the first response is to execute the plan rather than wing it.

Real-Time Alerts: Bolt the Barn Door in Time

Knowing your employees’ location at any given time enables travel managers to act quickly in adverse circumstances. Whether that’s an emergency exit due to weather conditions or emergency medical services due to a traffic collision.

This makes real-time alerts invaluable in business travel.

• Consented location tracking: Real-time location tracking should be clearly emphasised in your company’s travel policy, and the importance of which, should be communicated to your employees. Should employees be unwilling to provide consent, it may be wise to select alternative candidates for travel or include an indemnity, for waiving consent.
• Monitoring developing situations: Systems can set up automated alerts for civil unrest, extreme weather, and health outbreaks in your top travel regions. This provides vital time to remove travellers from growing risks.
• Multi-channel communication: Many emergencies knock out the internet infrastructure. SMS remains the most reliable way to reach your employees. Your risk management system must support app-based and SMS alerts that don’t need an internet connection.
• Triggered policy responses: Advanced travel platforms automatically flag itineraries that include high-risk regions. They can also freeze bookings to destinations where conditions have degenerated since the trip was approved and the original bookings made.

Real-time visibility doesn’t eliminate risk, nor does it invade privacy. It gives travel managers the time they need to act before a developing situation becomes a race for time or an evacuation rather than a reroute. For a deeper look at how traveller tracking technology works in practice, see our post on real-time traveller tracking for risk management and safety.

Human Support Is Irreplaceable in an Emergency

Technology is miraculous, as it handles monitoring and alerts at a speed and scale no human team can match, but it does have its limitations, as there are some emergency situations that don’t follow a script.

• Judgement under ambiguity: Fast-moving situations on the ground rarely follow a clear-cut script. You need an experienced travel consultant to assess a developing situation and decide if it requires immediate action or to understand if misinformation is amplifying a manageable risk.
• Relationship-based problem solving: Relationships within business travel are built over years of human interaction, and often, these relationships provide the problem-solving assistance you need in an emergency. Rerouting a stranded traveller often depends on relationships with specific airlines, hotel contacts, and ground operators.
• The human factor in duty of care: According to the SAP Concur Global Business Travellers Report 2024, 92% of travellers say they would decline trips if they felt unsafe or if their concerns weren’t addressed. In instances like this, a human voice doesn’t just provide comfort, but it also plays a key role in employee retention and duty of care obligations.
• 24/7 availability without compromise: There’s little worse than a hysterical employee faced with an out-of-hours automated response. You need round-the-clock human support from your travel manager.
  

The most effective travel risk frameworks combine technology for speed and scale with human expertise for the situations that require context, relationships, and experience. This is because they complement each other, each filling gaps left by the other.

Practical Risk Management Is How You Earn Trust & Loyalty

Face-to-face business meetings are proving far more valuable than virtual meetings. This is great for the corporate travel industry, but things have changed a lot since COVID-19 restricted all types of travel. It’s more complex, which is why travel management platforms have become so important. It can also carry more risk, which is why a framework that was adequate five years ago may not reflect the current travel environment.

Getting it right isn’t just about protecting employees in the moment, but about building the kind of trust that makes employees willing to travel, knowing that if something goes wrong, there’s a plan and a team ready to enact it.

If you’d like to talk through how VMR Travel can help you build a travel risk framework that’s fit for purpose, get in touch with our team.

Posted on 10 July 2026 by Dev ACC