Budgeting. Tracking. Agility. Strategy. Support. Now is the time to build the travel program you wish you had on March 1, 2020.
As many of us discovered this year, managing a travel program in a pandemic becomes especially difficult when your program isn’t built to mass-complete tasks in scale (like cancelling every air reservation you have and trying to track down the vouchers and waivers for each). Processes and policies that once served daily management needs displayed their weaknesses when industry-wide bans and restrictions halted non-essential travel in an instant and the resulting tasks came in giant waves over the course of just days.
We’re all adapting the way we manage travel to better fit the new normal. It’s not going to be an easy task, especially in the beginning. With Gant, preparing your travel program for whatever comes next is a lot easier than trying to go at it alone.
The travel industry is working with health and medical experts to develop and launch extensive health and safety protocols. With enhanced sanitization, heightened health screenings, social distancing, and limited-contact transactions the most common approaches, most businesses have adopted new processes, modified employee practices and/or redesigned public spaces to help protect employees and travelers.
As both business travel and leisure travel start to pick back up, hotels are modifying their cleaning and sanitization procedures to help prevent the spread
Public transportation and rental cars are important for business travelers across the nation. In order to protect the health and safety of travelers, many companies are
Processes and policies continue to evolve as the pandemic does; we recommend checking vendor sites for specific details before traveling. Below is a non-exhaustive list of larger industry chains and vendors and a link to their own site for a list of steps they are taking to protect travelers.
Return box with pre-paid FedEx overnight label attached
Sample requisition form to use as a guide for completing the lab requisition form that must be included with the sample
Some state, local, and territorial governments are enforcing new orders such as masks mandates and required self-quarantine for travelers.
When traveling domestically within the United States, the CDC recommends checking state, territorial, tribal and local public health websites for current restrictions before travel.
Travel.State.Gov recommends all international travelers conduct a pre-trip review of country-specific details that could affect their travel, such as entry/exit requirements, local laws and customs, health conditions, transportation, and other relevant topics.
U.S. embassies and consulates abroad issue alerts to inform U.S. citizens of specific safety and security concerns in a country, such as demonstrations, crime trends, and weather events. The Smart Traveler Enrollment Program allows travelers to select arrival and departure for specific countries to receive an emailed alert for any new Travel Advisories and Alerts as soon as they are issued.