Real-Time Traveller Tracking for Risk Management & Safety

Business travel has been identified as a key opportunity for growth, especially for SMEs. The reason is simple: people prefer face-to-face meetings for relationship building. However, travelling is not without its risks, so businesses must pull out all the stops to ensure their employees’ safety and well-being are taken care of. 

The best way to ensure this is to use tracking technology that identifies risks and enables travel managers to remove employees from situations quickly. 

Evacuation plans and other risk mitigation solutions must be included in business travel policies, and must be so well understood that they can be implemented at the drop of a hat.

There is a particularly important challenge when it comes to traveller tracking, and that is how to ensure safety without infringing on privacy. We’re going to look at this and more.

Real-Time Traveller Tracking

Traveller tracking technology includes tools that monitor and manage policy compliance, including expenses and behaviour. They can support travellers during disruptions and, increasingly importantly, periods of stress or exhaustion. 

Traveller tracking includes:

• Real-time data streamed directly to your business travel platform, enabling travel managers to respond to events immediately.
• Visibility into categories most relevant to your business, like flight routes, hotel bookings, ground transport, location, itineraries, and, of course, expenses. 
• Factors that affect mental health can also be tracked, for example, back-to-back meetings. Frequent travel is also flagged, for example, 4-5 business trips per month.

The aim is to gather sufficient information for travel managers to balance employee safety with realistic expenses. 

Proactive Safety and Crisis Response

One of the biggest benefits is the ability to be proactive rather than reactive when it comes to emergencies. This is due to real-time location tracking.

It’s important to note that this information shouldn’t be used against employees. It’s not about how many nightclubs they visit. It’s about knowing where they are, so risks in their vicinity can be identified and avoided. 

Risky situations include:

• Regions known for civil or political unrest; avoid at all costs.
• Extreme weather conditions. Patterns are increasingly difficult to pick up because climate change has made things topsy-turvy. So, you might need to watch for out-of-season hurricanes or early/late snowstorms. 
• Natural disasters, like earthquakes and erupting volcanoes. 
• Sudden outbreaks of illnesses or diseases, like a resurgence of Covid.

Tracking tools transform managers from observers to actors. This requires open communication, allowing employees to be alerted to potential crises via texting (SMS) and in-app notifications. These are essential when power is disrupted, and email isn’t available. 

Maximising Efficiency and Financial Control

Effective expense management and optimisation are the other side of the coin. 

Centralised dashboards form the basis of your travel management platform, collecting travel data and directing it to the correct categories. Expense-related data can be collated and delivered to provide total visibility into all costs, from bookings to meal vouchers. 

For example:

• Flexible travel plans adjust to unexpected changes, like rerouted flights due to airline delays. 
• Real-time data ensures total transparency, so stakeholders see where money is spent. 

Data provides insights into typical costs, enabling you to update travel policies and budgets if necessary. It also flags out-of-budget payments, which are immediately assessed and either approved or frozen.

Integration ensures data is shared among relevant departments, like finance, HR, and travel. This provides comprehensive custom reports, enabling department managers to keep track of policy compliance and optimise future travel processes.

Privacy Concerns

Here’s where it gets complicated. Ensuring duty of care (safety and well-being) requires access to all data. But privacy rights restrict the type of personal data that can be used. Therein lies the rub.

According to an Opinium survey of UK business travellers, 60% believed their employees could do more to ensure their safety. Moreover, 69% would decline business trips if they thought their safety was not a priority.

While employees want travel policies to be jacked up, employers must work within the confines of global data privacy laws, including:

• The EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR)
• ISO 27001 International standard for Information Security Management 
• California Privacy Act 2020
• South African Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI Act)

Employers can cover their bases by obtaining consent from employees before using location-sharing tools. Data use should be limited to approved processes. 

Note: Consent must be informed, so travel managers must ensure employees fully understand how and why tracking tools are used.

Implementing Tracking Best Practices

The following ensures your tracking policy complies with regulations.

• Clearly define your objectives. These include robust duty of care and streamlined travel management.
• Integrate tracking tools with your existing travel management solutions for efficiency and user-friendliness.
• Choose registered and verified vendors that provide certified monitoring software. They tick all the data security and right to privacy boxes.

Bear in mind that some things are out of your control. Just because something is a requirement doesn’t mean everyone is going to take it seriously. For example, according to World Travel Protection, even though many businesses strongly suggest travellers use designated travel assistance apps, only 30% of employees actually download them.

All you can do is develop a comprehensive travel policy that includes traveller tracking compliance requirements, ensure that employees fully understand the whys and wherefores, and make them aware of the consequences of non-compliance. While abiding by data privacy regulations, of course. 

Sources Used:

• Traveller Tracking System for Corporate Travel
• What is a corporate travel tracker?
• UK Business Travellers Say Employer Could Do More To Ensure Safety
• Travel Safety Apps: Debunking Misconceptions and Boosting Employee Adoption

Posted on 16 January 2026 by VMR Travel