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Business travel duty of care: What employers need to know
What business travel duty of care means for employers, and how to build a program that protects your team.
Business travel duty of care is an employer’s legal and ethical obligation to protect traveling employees from foreseeable harm. It isn’t optional and applies whether the trip is domestic or international, and whether the risk is a roadside accident, a mugging, or an emergency evacuation.
This guide contains:
- Why business travel duty of care matters
- Key risks covered by a duty of care program
- Who’s responsible for business travel duty of care
- The difference between business travel duty of care and travel risk management
- Phases of a business travel duty of care program
- What to include in your duty of care policy and tools that support it
If your team travels internationally, keeping them reachable is part of that obligation, which is where Holafly for Business fits in.
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Why business travel duty of care is important
Duty of care isn’t a compliance exercise, and falling short carries repercussions:
- Legal liability (lawsuits, fines, and, in some countries, criminal charges when a traveler is harmed)
- Reputational damage (a failure that becomes public affects how customers, staff, and future hires see the company)
- Lost productivity and turnover (unsupported travelers might get hesitant, delay trips, or leave, stalling the work the travel was meant to advance)
In contrast, a strong duty-of-care program demonstrates the company values traveler wellbeing, strengthening loyalty and retention.
Key risks covered by a duty of care program
A duty of care program is a structured approach to corporate travel security, covering many threats a traveler can face, including:
- Infectious diseases, inadequate access to local medical facilities, and emergencies.
- Street theft, physical assault, kidnapping, scams, and high-risk zones.
- Earthquakes, storms, wildfires, and floods.
- Violent protests, strikes, armed conflict, and changes in local security conditions.
- Targeted digital surveillance, device compromise, or data theft.
- Burnout, chronic stress, isolation, and the physical strain of frequent or long-haul itineraries.
Is business travel duty of care a legal requirement?
Yes, although no single global law exists, the obligation stems from occupational safety statutes, common law, and regional case law.
| Jurisdiction | Legal basis | What it requires |
|---|---|---|
| United States | Common-law negligence, state workers’ comp (“commercial traveler” doctrine), and OSHA General Duty Clause | Maintaining a safe work environment and taking reasonable steps to protect employees from foreseeable harm on work trips. |
| United Kingdom | Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974; Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 | Protecting employee health, safety, and welfare “so far as is reasonably practicable” on work trips, with criminal corporate liability for gross management failures. |
| European Union | Framework Directive 89/391/EEC, plus member-state labor codes | Mandatory employer risk assessments and proactive safety measures, enforced and expanded through national legislation. |
In every case, the legal bar is what a prudent employer would do given what it knew about the trip.
Who’s responsible for business travel duty of care?
Duty of care is a shared responsibility spanning policy, budget, legal exposure, employee wellbeing, and crisis response:
- Travel managers (curate booking platforms, enforce policy compliance, and manage relationships with travel management companies (TMCs) and vendors)
- Line managers (evaluate the necessity of trips, authorize travel, and assess whether itineraries suit travelers)
- HR (deliver travel safety training, communicate policies, coordinate benefits, and support traveler wellbeing)
- Security and risk teams (monitor geopolitical intelligence, conduct pre-trip threat assessments, and coordinate emergency response)
- Legal and finance (secure travel insurance, ensure regulatory compliance, and allocate crisis-response budgets)
- Employees (follow booking and safety protocols, maintain communication during disruptions, and report hazards and/or incidents)
Business travel duty of care vs. travel risk management
These two terms get used interchangeably, but they aren’t the same thing.
Duty of care is an employer’s responsibility to keep traveling staff safe. Travel risk management (TRM) is the plan and tools that fulfill it: assessing destinations, tracking trips, and responding to incidents.
Have a look at the table below to understand the distinction better:
| Business travel duty of care | Travel risk management (TRM) |
|---|---|
| The obligation to protect traveling employees | The processes and tools that carry it out |
| Answers “why” | Answers “how” |
| Set by law and shaped by courts | Often aligned with ISO 31030 |
| Constant, trip to trip | Scales to each destination and risk level |
The three phases of a business travel duty of care program
A good duty-of-care program is split into three phases.
Before travel
The goal is to understand the destination, prepare the traveler, and ensure the company knows where they’ll be and how to reach them.
- Review the destination’s safety, health, political, and weather profile.
- Conduct pre-trip briefings on destination-specific safety, health, culture, and emergency procedures.
- Confirm insurance coverage and check health requirements for entry.
- Register the trip and record emergency contact details.
- Book through the managed system to keep trip data accurate.
During travel
Once the trip starts, the company needs to know where travelers are, stay in contact both ways, and help when plans break down.
- Know where travelers are (with their consent), so you can identify who’s affected by an incident.
- Maintain a round-the-clock line for medical, security, or logistical help.
- Ensure travelers can contact support, and the company can reach them.
- Provide rebooking support and alerts for weather, transport, or security events.
After travel
Reviewing what happened, especially after an incident, is how the program improves and how travelers get follow-up support.
- Debrief on what happened and how the response worked.
- Adjust the policy based on what the trip exposed.
- Ask travelers what the policy missed.
What to include in your duty of care policy
A solid duty-of-care policy covers the components below.
| Component | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Pre-travel approval | A process to review trips for risk before they’re booked |
| Centralized booking | Approved channels, so the trip data is complete |
| Risk assessment guidelines | Criteria for evaluating destinations |
| Approved vendors | A list of accommodation and transport providers |
| Insurance and health requirements | Minimum coverage and any vaccination rules |
| Emergency protocols | Who travelers contact, how, and what happens next |
| Employee responsibilities | What travelers are expected to do themselves |
| Expense guidelines | Rules, so cost isn’t a reason to make an unsafe choice |
Centralized booking ties the rest together, since a policy can only manage the trips it can see. Our guide to corporate travel management covers how this fits into a wider program.
Tools that support business travel duty of care
A duty of care program relies on a tech stack across three layers:
- Travel risk management software: tracks travelers’ locations, exposure to threats, and sends two-way emergency alerts (e.g., Everbridge, Safeture, or AlertMedia).
- Centralized travel management platforms: consolidate bookings and itinerary feeds into a single view of who’s traveling and where (e.g., SAP Concur, Navan, TravelPerk).
- Security monitoring and support services: supply geopolitical risk intelligence, 24/7 hotlines, and boots-on-the-ground assistance or evacuation during an emergency (e.g., International SOS, Crisis24, Global Rescue).
Give traveling employees secure data with Holafly for Business
When your team is on the road, staying reachable is part of the duty-of-care plan.
Holafly for Business is a business eSIM provider available in 160+ destinations that activates on your team’s devices, so they don’t have to source local SIM cards or face surprise roaming charges. You also get access to our centralized management platform, the Holafly Business Center, to manage individual eSIMs, invoices, and data usage.
Holafly Plans for Business come in four tiers:
- Daily: unlimited data with pay-per-day flexibility, built for short business trips under 16 days a month.
- Monthly: unlimited data for teams traveling more than 16 days a month, a fit for frequent travelers and long-term remote staff.
- Annual: unlimited data for ultra-frequent travelers, suited to long-term global operations and predictable annual budgets.
- Enterprise: fully customized plans for companies managing travel for 20+ employees a year, with volume discounts, a dedicated account manager, priority support, and custom integrations, built to optimize costs, streamline operations, and ensure seamless global connectivity across teams.
Not sure which plan is right for your team? Book a demo.
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FAQs about business travel duty of care
You manage business travel duty of care through a travel risk management program: assess destinations, brief travelers, track trips (with consent), run a 24/7 assistance line, and review incidents afterward.
An example of the duty of care in business travel is the run-up to a trip to a higher-risk destination: the employer assesses the destination’s risks, briefs the traveler, confirms the traveler can be contacted during the trip, and has a response plan if things go wrong.
The four elements of the duty of care in negligence law are duty, breach, causation, and damages. All four must be present for a claim to succeed: a duty was owed, it was breached, the breach caused the harm, and the harm led to a measurable loss.
To prove a breach of duty of care, a claimant must show the employer failed to meet the standard of a reasonable organization by neglecting foreseeable risks, such as skipping pre-trip assessments, ignoring travel advisories, or failing to provide emergency support.
For a small company without a dedicated travel manager, the duty of care obligation typically falls to HR or an operations lead. The setup includes a formal policy, centralized booking, travel insurance, a pre-trip process, and 24/7 support.
If duty of care is challenged legally, “reasonable” is measured by what a prudent employer would’ve done given what it knew: the destination, the role, and the resources available. Meeting a standard such as ISO 31030, conducting risk assessments, and being able to locate and contact travelers support a “reasonable” defense.
I’m a writer with over eight years of experience in digital content. My work has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, Forbes, Business Insider, and the BBC. At Holafly, I write clear, practical guides to help travelers stay connected with eSIM technology. In my spare time, I enjoy car detailing, biking around Warsaw, and capturing portraits.
