Do you know where your travellers are?

Imagine there's a crisis unfolding, and you have hundreds of travellers on the road on a given day of the week. Imagine the supporting tools for your travellers are limited to the last airport or city centre they transited through, or invasive GPS technology tracking devices. You don’t have to imagine this, it is reality for all organisations today.

With the recent tornados in the US, the protests in France, the devastating earthquakes in Turkey & Syria, and the kidnappings in Papua New Guinea, it is important to be prepared for the risks that present themselves unexpectedly, and in many different forms.

The most common approach to traveller safety still relies on the GDS (Global Distribution System), which is the primary technology used by travel agents. It allows management of a customer’s airline bookings with all location data based on airport city codes. But, people don't travel to airports - they travel through them. The GDS wasn’t designed to understand where travellers end up on their journeys with the level of detail that is required today.

University staff and students travel across the world and deep within countries to conduct research, attend conferences, and to collaborate with international peers. COVID-19 underscored the need for better risk management. When the initial COVID-19 lockdowns were announced in March 2020, there were thousands of Australian university staff and students all over the world, and it was a monumental task to find and repatriate them due to these technology limitations.

Nutrip is not dependent on the GDS nor a flight and has been purpose-built to cater for all types of university travel activities - no matter where the travellers are going, how they get there, or how they book. Nutrip's customers have the comfort of knowing they can find their travellers with specific locations at any time. This is not only important when responding to a crisis, but also helps mitigate the risks before people travel.

Travel risk is high on the agenda at universities. In today’s world it is important that they are using services and technologies that are fit-for purpose and are used by all university travellers - staff, academics, students and those external to the university.