A rapidly increasing priority for travel managers, wellbeing was the focus of a packed breakout session and was also selected by delegates for the association’s Industry Affairs Group to tackle in the year ahead.
Research presented at the event shows 87% of organisations will be changing their approach to traveller wellbeing in the next 12 months.
The high intensity of travel, lack of recovery time and poor quality of travel were the biggest challenges to travellers’ wellbeing.
One travel manager said that while her organisation was taking wellbeing seriously, suppliers are slower on the take up, “but we are beginning to have those conversations with suppliers about how they can support us”.
Another buyer described her company’s introduction of a pre-trip ‘fit for travel’ assessment form “which prompts them to question whether they are ok to travel”.
The same business is also trialling the wearing of heart monitors to help identify particular pain points.
Meanwhile panellist Dr Lucy Rattrie advised travel managers to ask five pre-trip questions “to help make a quick and fair assessment of whether the travel being asked of that person is fair”.
The questions covered how someone feels about a proposed trip; what the company can do to protect their wellbeing; how the trip will affect their personal life; and what the organisation can do to mitigate risk before, during and post-trip.
