Technology: Disruption detection

Can TMCs use data and artificial intelligence to improve traveller wellbeing and duty of care processes? Linda Fox reports

Duty of care and traveller wellbeing are considered the two biggest challenges for business travel buyers in 2019.

A survey from Traveldoo released earlier this year reveals 73% of buyers ranked duty of care as the biggest challenge, followed by traveller wellbeing at 70% and data security at 65%. The finding is supported by similar research from FCM, which showed duty of care remains high on the agenda this year alongside distribution concerns and data.

The travel management company also stresses the increasing need for TMCs to incorporate data into traveller safety, no matter which booking channel is used.

With so much talk about machine learning and artificial intelligence, as well as other emerging technologies such as augmented and virtual reality, TMCs are beginning to explore how they might make best use of these developments.

One TMC sees applications for AI and machine learning in predicting the likelihood of disruption and being proactive in finding alternative travel arrangements.

Sarah Hale, Director of Engineering at Click Travel, says it is already exploring the use of AI with its travel assistant to help determine what responses to queries can be automated depending on how frequently they are asked and the speed with which they can be resolved.

“The tech is going to have to advance to become truly useful in these scenarios, but it’s exciting to think these opportunities may be part of the standard travelling experience in the future,” says Hale.

Risk mitigation business Drum

Cussac believes machine learning has the potential to revolutionise how companies approach and manage risk. In its Future of Risk report the company’s Chief Technology Officer, Alistair Wyse, says technology could be employed to tailor alerts to specific travellers as opposed to the more blanket approach used today.

Wyse says machine learning can be used to identify who may be impacted by an incident based on their location, as well as past behaviour such as mode of transport.

He also sees potential for machine learning in pre-travel training which draws on detailed profile information including past behaviour and experiences.

The company goes a step further by imagining how augmented reality might be used with machine learning to provide travellers with a virtual overlay of risks in real time and in an area they are visiting. It also foresees a scenario for security managers to use virtual reality to review incidents and fine tune response.

While much of this may still sound science fiction, a number of companies have incorporated emerging technologies into prototypes. Concur, for example, released details last year of a VR-based duty of care initiative. For many however, there is still a lot of work needed in just getting

the basics right.

Mike Atherton, Chief Executive of Mantic Point, a specialist in mobile technology, says what the travel management community needs most is “contextually relevant information at the right time”.

But even before that a crisis management plan must be in place. “Technology won’t deliver unless people know how to act during an event,” he says.

Once that’s there, he believes the role of technology currently is in reducing the time it takes for a travel manager to take action.

Machine learning has the potential to revolutionise how companies approach and manage risk”