American Express Global Business Travel (GBT) has launched Travel Vitals, a comprehensive resource for travelers looking for the latest travel risk updates related to COVID-19. Travel Vitals is a centralized, accessible hub that keeps travelers up-to-date on essential travel information, from country restrictions and airline policies to new hotel rules and changes to ground transportation, ensuring they are fully prepared for their trips.
Data is aggregated from hundreds of sources, allowing users to search travel guidelines by destination, airline, airport, hotel chain, train operator, and ground transportation provider. The know-before-you-go tool shows travel restrictions for specific locations, while also identifying Covid-19 infection rate spikes and hot spots.
The journey assistant is free and available to all travel managers, travel management companies and travelers. For GBT clients and travelers, Travel Vitals powers itinerary-specific information in digital channels, including the Amex GBT mobile app, chat and online booking tools. Travel counselors answering calls and messages around the world have full access and are contributing in real time to the refinement of local information.
“Trip information is going to be central to building trust and confidence. We have to quickly aggregate relevant data in a world in which guidance changes daily. It’s dynamic, and we’re updating it daily. Given the fluidity of the situation, we can only be as up to date as the information available. For that reason, we welcome additional validated sources. But we’re doing this because for the foreseeable future, we have to manage every trip as if we were planning an event. Door-to-door travel management has long been an aspiration for our industry, but that isn’t enough in these circumstances. The role of the TMC now begins as soon as the need to travel is first identified and ends long after the traveler has returned home,” said Mark McSpadden, GBT’s Vice President of Product Strategy and Experience.
For travel managers, Travel Vitals is integrated into the trip audit process and can trigger alerts when journeys are booked to high-risk destinations. Reporting capabilities monitor future bookings, helping drive policy compliance when hotel stays, or ground options are not booked alongside air travel. Conversely, reports track historical bookings, critical if an individual’s movements need to be retrospectively traced because of an infection rate spike in a specific location.
While Travel Vitals is available to all online, GBT is consciously pursuing a mobile-first strategy to instill maximum confidence in our clients and travelers. “We want this content to be easy for travelers to access while they’re on the move. To chat with a travel counselor on the mobile app, use messaging like Apple Business Chat, or receive notifications from the travel manager while on a trip, all helps travelers feel confident and connected,” added McSpadden.
For more information, go to amexglobalbusinesstravel.com. This story originally appeared in sister publication Prevue.
For more updates on new protocols, visit Recommend’s Safe Travels page. Stories about future travel can be accessed at #AmazingDaysAhead.
