Travel agencies race to adopt breakthrough risk management solution for Covid-safe travel

As international borders gradually begin to reopen, the global travel industry is rapidly embracing a breakthrough data solution that enables travel agents and corporations to help their clients and staff plan COVID safe travel anywhere in the world.

Leading travel management companies, agencies and distribution networks in Europe, North America and the Pacific have already signed up for GOPASS Global, a remarkable pre-travel risk management platform that launched only in January this year. And more big signings will be announced in the coming weeks.

The platform distils all the risk factors relevant to a flight itinerary from 35 global data sources, in near real-time, including headline destination safety factors such vaccination rates, border restrictions, quarantine requirements and safety protocols. It also identifies the risks associated with the trip routing, transit points, airports, airlines, aircraft type and even the choice of seat, and provides travel planners with a quantifiable risk score for each itinerary.

Agencies to adopt the new data solution in the past month include:

• US-based corporate travel alliance Hickory Global Partners, with over 2500 members,
• Lufthansa City Center (LCC), the world’s largest independent franchise company in the travel agency market with 500 offices in 85 countries, and
• First Travel Group, New Zealand’s leading alliance of independent travel agencies

“GOPASS Global not only provides our members with up to the minute data on the global COVID situation, it enables our customers to evaluate the risk associated with every country, city and airport they visit and every airline and aircraft type they fly on,” says Malcolm McLeod, the CEO of New Zealand’s leading independent travel alliance, First Travel Group.

“Knowledge is power and if the initial reaction from our members is any indication, they can’t get enough of it,” says McLeod.

GOPASS global director of distribution Dave Simmons says: “Travel brands are quickly appreciating how our technology can help them navigate their way through the bewildering and ever-changing maze of information about Covid impacts on travel. This is important for all travelers but especially for corporate travel given that new health and safety regulations place even greater responsibility on companies to demonstrate that they have fully assessed the risks associated with corporate travel prior to an employee boarding an aircraft.”

Simmons said that as countries began to open up to international travel, employers and employees needed an objective and measurable assessment of the risk associated with any proposed itinerary.

Maximum scores can be set as part of a company’s travel policy and complement existing duty of care programmes. Simmons confirmed that GOPASS Global had joined the developer partner platform of global distribution system Sabre Corporation and was in talks with many other leading travel brands around the world.