TripActions aggregates sources of COVID-19 data to assist companies, travelers

TripActions is introducing several new tools and functions to help travel managers and individual travelers assess safety measures and minimize costs as they prepare for business travel to resume.

Over the next few days, TripActions will launch an enhanced administrative dashboard, more fine-tuned policy controls, destination and airline safety and hygiene data, automated integration of unused tickets and travel waivers and a free, public-facing COVID-19 data site.

Co-founder and chief technology officer Ilan Twig says these products developed out of a need to access this type of data internally and the realization that there is no “single source of truth.” Instead, TripActions began curating data from multiple sources, such as the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus dashboard, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the World Health Organization and others, and also used epidemiological models to calculate the reproduction (R) number – the number of COVID-19 cases directly generated by one case – for every state in the U.S. and all countries that have adequate public-facing data.

Now all of that data is available to TripActions users through multiple channels. Finance and travel managers have an enhanced dashboard showing CDC ratings, government restrictions, R number and cases per 100,000 residents for all locations where employees have traveled in the last two weeks or will be traveling in the future.

TripActions has also added more customization for its policy settings, so administrators can enable or blacklist specific destinations and can also enable travel by specific employees within the company. 

For travelers, TripActions is adding more information in the booking tool so users see what actions specific airlines are taking to address COVID-19. The system also shows the destination data - CDC ratings, government regulations, R number, etc. – and sends updated information via email before and during a trip.

To address clients’ financial concerns, TripActions has automated the redemption of unused tickets and waivers. 

“When travel came to a halt due to travel restrictions around the world, many organizations saw mass cancellations of booked travel by their employees. The major airlines waived their normal cancellation and change fees, allowing travelers to rebook travel in the future with no penalty,” Twig says.

“By automating unused tickets and waivers in the booking flow, TripActions is ensuring that its clients don’t leave any money on the table, helping with both business travel and financial recovery.”

And after aggregating this data, TripActions says it decided to make it available to the public. The free “TripActions Business Travel Recovery” site will launch next week, enabling anyone to input an origin and destination to get real-time data including R numbers, number of active cases, government restrictions and more. The site is launching with data for all U.S. states and top global destinations by country.