However the need to keep up with all the well-intentioned but often baffling COVID countermeasures is putting a premium on accurate travel information. As a result, in addition to familiar online booking tools, other travel organizations are also putting out their own industry-specific solutions to keep travelers up to date.
Global
The International Air Transport Association is providing a free online interactive world map showing the latest COVID-19 entry regulations by country. The map uses the organization’s Timatic database to show information on documentation needed for international travel. The system updates more than 200 times a day showing accurate travel restrictions to specific areas based on citizenship and country of residence.The link can be viewed at go.updates.iata.org
Airlines
American Airlines has launched a new online solution that allows customers to see the current coronavirus travel guidelines and restrictions for the airline’s domestic and international destinations. The travel guide can be accessed at aa.com on the travel updates page, under the Travel Restrictions section. When a destination is entered, results will show up-to-date guideline information, as well as travel requirements such as face coverings, health documentation and quarantine rules.
United Airlines has introduced a new interactive map tool both on united.com and the United mobile app that allows customers to filter and view COVID-19 related travel restrictions for destinations in the airline’s network. The Destination Travel Guide provides an interactive, color-coded map to highlight if a destination is closed, partially open or fully open for travel, and will also note if any tests or self-quarantining is required.
Airports
Airports Council International World has an app which provides passengers with information about the health measures in place at individual airports. Currently available for Apple devices, the Check and Fly app is “a way for airports to communicate to passengers directly as to what to expect when they plan to travel,” according to an ACI statement. Also under development is a web portal. Once completed, airports will be able to feed up-to-date information directly into the service.
Rail
Amtrak customers can now see how full their reserved train will be on the rail line’s website and mobile app. Since bookings are limited on most trains to allow for physical distancing, the number indicates how full the train is as a percentage based on the reduced number of seats available. The results are displayed in real time when customers search for their train.
Corporate Travel
American Express Global Business Travel has launched Travel Vitals, a travel briefing platform that allows users to search travel guidelines by destination, airline, airport, hotel chain, train operator and ground transportation provider. The journey assistant is free and available to all travel managers, travel management companies and travelers. Itinerary-specific information is available for GBT clients and travelers.
Tripkicks, a cost-savings and compliance add-on for business travel programs, has launched a new solution for corporate booking tools. When business travelers book a trip, Tripkicks presents real-time insights that include health and safety information, travel disruption alerts, border and visa entry requirements, COVID-19 risk information and destination intelligence. Tripkicks can be activated within Concur Travel.
Dining
Dinova, the business dining platform with a network of over 20,000 restaurants, has a free mobile app and guide aimed at helping diners make safe decisions when dining out during the pandemic. The new Business Dining 2.0, focuses on four factors: restaurant responsibility, such as safe food handling and complying with government rules; diner responsibility for planning ahead and complying with restaurant rules; shared responsibility of hand hygiene and social distancing; and diner screening.
Travel InsuranceInsure
MyTrip, a travel insurance comparison site, launched a COVID-19 Recommendation Tool to guide travelers searching for coverage for certain COVID-19 related issues. Popular coverage includes benefits like Trip Cancellation, Trip Interruption, CFAR (Cancel For Any Reason), Quarantine Coverage, Emergency Medical Coverage or Financial Default Coverage. Travelers can review the expanding list of highlighted plans after completing a quote.
Meetings
Cvent, the meetings technology provider, has added several new safety features to the Cvent Supplier Network, its event venue sourcing platform, and to Cvent Event Diagramming, the seating and diagramming solution. New features include: Source Safety Hub, a database of venue health and safety information; a meeting space calculator that determines space for social distancing; outdoor space and safety protocol filters; a health and safety tool, which allows venues to diagram elements such as temperature checks, hygiene stands and sanitizing stations.
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TripActions Launches Enterprise Edition
TripActions, the corporate travel and expense management platform, has launched its Enterprise Edition, which provides a comprehensive, unified T&E solution “combining the best booking experience, robust global inventory, expert 24/7 travel agent service and modern payments and expense tech — all from a single, trusted partner,” according to the company. The Enterprise Edition features a personalized artificial intelligence powered booking and payments experience across web and mobile, and a marketplace with broad inventory through multiple points of sale and diversified sourcing including GDS and NDC. Tripactions Enterprise provides dedicated in-house travel agents who provide support, strategic consulting services, duty of care and traveler safety features, as well as “powerful” cost-savings tools.
Coupa Launches Savings Solution for Air
Coupa, a company specializing in business spend management, has launched Coupa Travel Saver Insights for Air. The tool is an advanced analytics solution that allows corporate travel managers to mine large data sets of air travel spend for new opportunities to reduce travel costs, improve supplier negotiations and optimize overall travel program performance. The new solution complements Travel Saver Insights for Hotel, a hotel analytics solution that offers insights into savings achieved by implementing recommendations across sourcing, rate types and policy improvements.
Enhanced Tripbam Smart Sourcing Available as Standalone Product
Tripbam, the global hotel shopping, benchmarking and analytics provider, has announced a new release of its Smart Sourcing product that makes the solution available to any corporation or consultant, regardless of whether they’re existing Tripbam clients or using a TMC reselling the Tripbam rate auditing service. Smart Sourcing leverages data collected from daily rate auditing to empower travel managers and procurement professionals to secure hotel agreements in just a few clicks. New demand from consultants and buyers not already using TripBam for daily rate auditing led the company to make Smart Sourcing available as a standalone product. In addition, this release also offers a new batch RFP feature and a discount factor to account for difficulties in applying historical data to a post-COVID marketplace.
Star Alliance Connection Goes Digital with Singapore Air
Singapore Airlines is the launch airline for a new digital version of the Star Alliance’s Connection Service. Originally introduced in 2017, the Connection Service helps customers make time-critical flight connections between Star Alliance member airlines. The digital service is embedded in the participating member airline’s mobile app, currently available for Android devices, with iOS implementation to come soon.The initial release on the SingaporeAir mobile app will be trialed at London Heathrow Airport Terminal 2, using the technology of digital location specialists Living Map to create customized customer routings within the terminal. Features include updated transfer information and intuitive navigational services through the customer’s smartphone. Star Alliance says it plans to roll out the new digital version of its Connection Service to more transfer-intensive hub airports for adoption by other member airlines in the future. n
