The power of crisis management

In a world that has experienced a number of natural disasters and growing instances of political unrest, the issue of crisis management is never far from a travel manager’s mind. At HRG we are proud of our achievements in ensuring the safety, security and repatriation of our clients’ travellers who find themselves stranded in such situations.

Secure solutions

Our focus, in the midst of any crisis, is on our clients and their travellers. We do everything possible to ensure their safety and mitigate their inconvenience. The priority is to locate and repatriate travellers as quickly as we can. Our management information and security data comes into its own in providing our clients with corporate and individual traveller information.

We work to ensure that we know exactly where their employees are located and that they are safe, made possible because of the exacting data strategies we implement with every client. We urge clients to be flexible so that they have the authority to adjust their travel policy as necessary. For example, extracting staff via charter aircraft, arranging accommodation in hotels that are perhaps off policy and, of course, that staff in affected areas have extended credit on their expense cards to ensure they can get by.

The most important element is communication and a human voice. All of our affected clients have a dedicated email and phone points of contact that’s available 24/7. We are able to pull together staff across other international hubs to ensure that clients have the latest information, from us and their own security teams, regardless of time. At HRG we benefit from a large number of home workers, talented travel consultants who at times of need, volunteer to plug into the network to support colleagues and clients who need to be repatriated.

International network

There is often a demand for ‘business as usual’ in an affected region, despite the scale of the tragedy or the reach of the conflict, from the rest of the world. Thanks to the scale and strength of our network, we are able to ensure day to day business travel is unhindered by the situation without compromising our contingency services.

Results

As growing tensions spill over into violent unrest across the Middle East, HRG has worked tirelessly to extract and repatriate clients’ travellers.

Evacuation from Libya and Bahrain: gratitude expressed by an International Consulting Company: "We cannot thank you enough for the service provided tonight... We had a long trip and we were very tired so we really appreciate your work and the speed in which it was all done. Thank you so much from all of us."

Evacuation from Bahrain:
"The European Head of Security wanted me to pass on his thanks to 24 hours for their assistance in getting our travellers out of Bahrain last week. He actually said they did a superb job. Please pass this message on to let them know their assistance was much appreciated."

As the Pacific Rim recovers from a large number of earthquakes across the region, HRG has received praise for its efforts in securing the safety of travellers. Here are the comments of a client from a global pharmaceutical company in Australia who had staff stranded in New Zealand during the aftermath of the February earthquake:

"I would like to express my deep appreciation for all your help in assisting our staff home safely in a time of confusion and crisis. Your ability to work with our team in the office and get things organised on the ground for the team in Christchurch was just outstanding...particularly finding the bus driver, coordinating accommodation and booking flights out of New Zealand , and getting clearance through immigration. I have spoken with our returned staff today and all have expressed gratitude for the work that was done to get them home safely and with little hassle as possible."