The Travel and Meetings Society helps evaluate the suitability of each trip.

The Travel and Meetings Society (TAMS) has created an online solution to help travel managers and travelers choose between holding a face-to-face or videoconferencing appointment. The tool, which is free of charge, uses a branching logic and a series of questions to guide that decision at a time when many companies are preparing to travel again.

As Peter Psaltakis, co-chairman of the TAMS Technology Committee, explained to online newspaper BTN, “we have around 30 questions on the back-end, but depending on the destination and type of trip, at most each user has to answer about 15”.

The system is progressive and very ágile. For example, when you click on start and the first general question is whether your government allows travel to a given destination, you can continue when the answer is yes, as a matter of course, but if it is no, a deadlock occurs.

Questions address issues such as border closures, required quarantines, mobility restrictions, expenses, security or return on investment. The tool answers whether travel would be permitted, desirable, advisable, practical, affordable or sustainable, according to TAMS.

It then makes its recommendation with four outcomess: travel, schedule a videoconference, consider videoconferencing instead of travel, or conduct further research before making a determination.

According to Psaltakis, the idea for the tool came about when he and his co-chair, Karoline Mayr, founder and principal consultant at Get Travel Solutions, surveyed members in November and came up with a list of 10 projects for 2021. "Vaccines were starting to become a reality, so we said, &lsquot;how can we provide something of value to the industry to inspire confidence when it comes to travel again?’".

The project arose with the intention of guiding professionals, whether they are corporate travel managers, frequent travelers or personnel in human resources, legal or risk management departments who have at some point asked themselves the questions proposed by the solution.