"We need to put even more focus on risk management and contingency plans."

Specialized travel agencies have played an essential role in the first phase of the coronavirus crisis by providing crucial coverage when it came to repatriating business travelers who were away from home. Now they are preparing for a de-escalation in which their corporate clients require more support and advice than ever to reorient their travel program, as Ignacio González, country director of Globalia Corporate Travel, points out.

"What is your assessment of the health and economic crisis derived from Covid19?

The great experience lived during these almost two months in the successful management that we have carried out in Globalia Corporate Travel and our great human capital have highlighted the importance of security and prevention policies. We have been able to prove the value of the human component in the resolution of certain complex transactions to repatriate passengers and also in the flexibility and adaptation to the context, as GCT's human capital has done, pursuing to the last option tirelessly to find the solution that would unite the corporate traveler with his family and make it easier for him to be with his family in his place of origin. Since the beginning of the state of alarm, we have managed more than 11,000 transactions and helped more than 5,500 corporate and institutional passengers return home.

 

¿

What is the weight of the human factor versus technology in the response to an emergency process like the current one?

We must affirm, in the short and medium term, that people will not necessarily be replaced by machines, but by people who understand the machines well enough to achieve service excellence. Now more than ever, the role of specialization in such a critical aspect has been of vital importance for our companies, public administrations and the General State Administration, to the extent that it has guaranteed the protection and care of the greatest asset of corporations: their employees. We have received a multitude of recognitions for this, which makes us strengthen even more the focus on travel risk management and contingency plans that we offer to our companies.

 

?How does the scenario of the so-called ‘new normal’?

The volume of transactions, operations and repatriations we have managed has been of enormous magnitudes, and we have been able to move in a context of unprecedented chaos. Companies are aware of this reality and it is advisable not to lose sight of this idea when we recover a certain degree of normality, because the scenario that awaits us will continue to be unknown in some aspects, and companies, more than ever, should be much more conscious when deciding in whose hands they place the travel and integrity of their employees. Likewise, corporations should consider that in the current and future context, the measure of value with which they categorize TMCs should not be solely and exclusively the transaction. We have always been pedagogical about this, but now more than ever, security must take precedence over other types of concepts, as it acts as a corrective factor for savings.

 

What critical aspects must be reinforced in contingency plans?

GCT has a 24/7/365 emergency service provided 100% by Globalia Corporate Travel's own staff, located at our headquarters, with great flexibility in service and proven excellence in this and other recent crises. We will continue to enhance it even more.

In addition, our Global Care service, which comprises all of our alerting, monitoring and geolocation tools —before, during and after travel— are designed to have a flexible technological infrastructure to balance traveler safety and assistance, both health and security.

This Risk Management solution, managed by our process improvement department, allows the sending of customized alerts and communications to clients by country, which is especially useful in the event of a crisis such as the current one, whose evolution is not homogeneous worldwide, allowing global and customized monitoring, depending on the needs.

We have recently incorporated Global Travel Risk Academy, which is a new product for the traveler to have information prior to the date of travel, with all the quality and reliability of the data updated instantly so that the passenger has a full guarantee at every stage of your trip.

 

?

In what way has the role of the agencies been strengthened with regard to their client companies?

When the European airspace was closed due to the eruption of an Icelandic volcano, when the air traffic controllers' strike broke out, in the air traffic controllers' strike, in the terrorist attacks, in the air traffic controllers' strike, in the air traffic controllers' strike, in the air traffic controllers' strike, in the air traffic controllers' strike, in the air traffic controllers' strike, in the air traffic controllers' strike, in the air traffic controllers' strike, in the air traffic controllers' strike and in the air traffic controllers' strike;In the case of terrorist attacks and events of all kinds, those who respond without any doubt are the specialized agencies that generate value with solutions of all kinds. Those who did not contract with agencies really specialized and flexible in their procedures, were thrown into chaos, because there was no one on the other side to help them or they were referred to saturated telephones or redirected to a website where no one answers or it takes a long time to offer a valid solution. Therefore, the security, reliability and certainty that Globalia Corporate Travel can bring, now more than ever, to this context must be taken into account.

 

¿

Do you think that business travel will recover to pre-crisis levels?

Most studies on start-up plans point to the common denominator of a rapid recovery from the moment when the state of alarm is lifted and activity begins to return to a certain level of normality. Our industry is very sensitive to the turbulence of the global environment, but corporate travel has an anti-climactic behavior that favors its activation at times when the economy slows down. All indications are that business travel will continue to play a key role in restoring economic confidence and will spearhead the industry's recovery.