Sweden-based employee risk management provider Safeture now is offering its corporate clients the option to use off-channel booking capture specialist Traxo to enhance visibility into the locations of their business travellers, the companies have announced.
Under Safeture's new add-on service, Traxo technology automatically imports all employee travel information—including flight, hotel and ground transport—contained in booking confirmation emails sent to employee email addresses into Safeture's duty of care platform, reducing blind spots for travel managers. Subsequent trip cancellations, changes or updates also automatically flow into Safeture, the companies said.
Meanwhile, existing Traxo clients now can sign on with Safeture via the Traxo Marketplace, the company's third-party distribution platform. Traxo clients who sign with Safeture via the Traxo Marketplace are offered the same integration opportunity, Traxo said.
Out-of-channel booking activity has remained a stubborn problem for some corporate travel managers; a recent survey by DVI found that an average of 31 per cent of respondent companies' travel spend in 2019 was booked outside of preferred channels. In addition to hindering travel managers' duty of care responsibilities—which have been magnified by the Covid-19 pandemic—that lack of visibility into spend also hinders companies' ability to effectively budget for travel, calculate return on travel investment and negotiate with suppliers, according to some observers.
Safeture, which said it provides duty-of-care services for more than 3,500 client companies in 190 countries, was one of the first risk monitoring specialists to roll out a Covid-19 virus tracking function, doing so in late February 2020 as the virus spread into Europe from its early stages in Asia. The tool was rolled out by Global Travel Management in October.
Dallas-headquartered Traxo began distributing its email capture technology in September 2020 through travel management companies, which are facing increased client demand for enhanced visibility into employee travel activity amid the ongoing pandemic.
Traxo inked a deal with Advantage to track programme leakage in October.
Additional reporting by Mark Frary