Only 20 per cent of business travellers use a travel assistance app, despite having one

Travel assistance apps are used to inform and alert travellers of security risk in their location, and allow them to receive help instantly.

However, while 65 per cent of business travellers say their organisation provides them with access to a travel assistance app, only a fifth (20 per cent) use it.

According to a new Opinium survey of 500 business travellers, commissioned by World Travel Protection, the main obstacle discouraging usage of a travel assistance app is privacy and cyber security issues.

For example, 20 per cent do not want their company knowing their location on personal days; 14 per cent do not want their data shared with an outside company; and 14 per cent are worried about the cyber security risk.

Additional reasons include being a confident traveller (19 per cent) and only travelling to areas that they deem as ‘safe’ (15 per cent).

However, 26 per cent of business travellers said they ‘haven’t bothered’ to download the travel assistance app provided by their company, while 18 per cent said that they don’t understand the benefits of using these apps.

Men (23 per cent) are much more likely than women (13 per cent) to say that they don’t want to use a travel assistance app and only two per cent of organisations insist that travelling teams must use one. 

Kate Fitzpatrick, Regional Security Director, EMEA, at World Travel Protection, said: “All travellers should always have a travel assistance app on their smartphone when they are away for work purposes. As we saw with Covid, as well as recent natural disasters, nowhere is 100 per cent safe.”