How to Meet Duty of Care Requirements for Business Travelers

Last Updated: October 28, 2026

Table of Contents

• What Duty of Care Means for Business Travel
  • Legal and ethical responsibilities to traveling employees
  • Contractors, remote workers and non-employee travelers
• Building a Corporate Travel Policy Template That Protects Employees
• Running an Employee Travel Risk Assessment Before Every Trip
  • Destination, health, safety and security risks
  • Accessibility and individual traveler needs
• Tracking Traveler Location Without Crossing Privacy Lines
  • The legal frameworks that govern traveler data
  • Choose the least invasive method that works
  • Consent, notice, and the limits of each
  • Data minimization, retention, and access control
  • The privacy-versus-safety trade-off, stated plainly
• Writing a Business Travel Emergency Plan Your Team Can Use
• Choosing Safe Ground Transportation for Business Travelers
• Setting Up Your Duty of Care Program Next Steps
• Frequently Asked Questions

What Duty of Care Means for Business Travel

Duty of care is an employer's legal and moral obligation to protect employees from foreseeable harm while they work, including while they travel.

Duty of care is not a single policy or a checkbox.

The core idea is simple. If a risk is foreseeable and you can reasonably reduce it, you should. The rest of this guide shows how to turn that idea into a working program.

Legal and ethical responsibilities to traveling employees

Employers in the United States have a general obligation to provide a safe workplace, and that obligation is generally understood to extend to employees on work trips. Legal counsel should confirm the requirements that apply to your organization.

Ethically, the expectation is clear. Employees who travel for you are trusting you with their safety. Treating that trust seriously protects people, and it also protects your reputation as an employer.

Practical steps to start with:

• Identify every employee who travels for work, including occasional travelers
• Define which trips need pre-approval or extra planning
• Document the travel safety resources you provide
• Review the program with HR and legal counsel at least once a year

Contractors, remote workers and non-employee travelers

Duty of care does not always stop at your payroll. Contractors, consultants, and remote workers who travel on your behalf may fall under your program, depending on how they are engaged and what your contracts say.

Clarify coverage in writing. Your contracts, travel policy, and vendor agreements should state who is covered, what support they receive, and who to call in an emergency. Include non-employee travelers such as guest speakers and clients you bring on site, if you pay for their travel.

Building a Corporate Travel Policy Template That Protects Employees

A corporate travel policy is the written rulebook for how your team books, travels, and gets help on the road. A good policy is short enough to read and specific enough to follow.

A corporate travel policy template should include these sections:

• Scope: Who the policy covers, including employees, contractors, and guests
• Approval: Which trips need manager or travel manager sign-off, and by when
• Approved booking channels: Where travelers must book flights, hotels, and ground transportation
• Ground transportation rules: Which service types are approved and when a private car is required
• Safety requirements: Pre-trip briefings, check-in expectations, and emergency contacts
• Incident reporting: How and when travelers report problems, and who responds
• Exceptions: How to request and document a deviation from the policy

Keep the policy in plain language. Set up corporate billing for executive transportation if your policy covers executive car services. Put the emergency contact number on the first page. Review it every year, and after any incident that exposes a gap.

Running an Employee Travel Risk Assessment Before Every Trip

A travel risk assessment is a quick check of what could go wrong on a specific trip and what you will do about it. For most trips, it takes a few minutes. For high-risk destinations or long itineraries, it may take longer.

A simple assessment asks four questions:

1. Where is the traveler going, and what are the known risks there?
2. What is the traveler's health and any special need that affects the trip?
3. What transportation and lodging are planned, and are there backup options?
4. How will the company know if the traveler is safe, and how will it respond if not?

Document the answers. A short written record can document the assessment.

Destination, health, safety and security risks

Destination risk covers crime, political unrest, weather, infrastructure problems, and health concerns such as local disease outbreaks. Check current guidance from the U.S. Department of State's travel advisories before approving trips to unfamiliar places. Health risks deserve their own check, including required vaccinations and access to quality medical care at the destination.

Include the local emergency number, the nearest embassy or consulate, and the hotel's safety procedures.

Accessibility and individual traveler needs

Travelers are not identical. Someone with a mobility limitation, a chronic condition, a medication schedule, or a disability may need different arrangements. Ask every traveler about needs before the trip, and make the request confidential. Accommodations may include accessible vehicles, ground-floor rooms, or extra time between connections.

Confirm your obligations with counsel, and treat individual needs as part of the risk assessment, not an afterthought.

Tracking Traveler Location Without Crossing Privacy Lines

Knowing where travelers are is the operational backbone of duty of care. Without it, you cannot confirm someone is safe, route help to them, or account for everyone during a regional crisis. But location data is among the most sensitive categories of employee information, and a tracking program built without privacy guardrails creates legal exposure and erodes the trust that makes the program work.

The goal is not maximum visibility. It is the minimum visibility needed to meet your duty, collected transparently, used narrowly, and deleted on schedule.

The legal frameworks that govern traveler data

Privacy obligations may come from several directions:

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• Contract and vendor obligations. If a tracking platform processes data on your behalf, your vendor agreement should address security, breach notification, subprocessors, and deletion.

Choose the least invasive method that works

Most travel programs do not need continuous GPS tracking. A tiered approach matches visibility to risk:

1. Itinerary on file (baseline). Flight numbers, hotel addresses, meeting locations, and a mobile number. This covers the majority of routine domestic trips and answers the core question, where is this person supposed to be?
2. Check-in cadence (moderate risk). A scheduled text or app check-in at arrival and at defined intervals. Simple, low-intrusion, and easy to audit.
3. Opt-in location sharing (elevated risk). Enabled per trip for high-risk destinations, late-night arrivals, or travelers with known medical needs. Sharing should be time-boxed to the trip and revocable by the traveler.
4. Continuous tracking (rare). Reserved for genuinely high-risk assignments, and only with explicit written consent, a documented rationale, and a defined end date.

Publish this tiering in the travel policy so travelers know in advance which trips trigger which level of visibility.

Consent, notice, and the limits of each

A privacy-conscious approach can combine:

• Clear notice at onboarding and before each trip describing what is collected, why, who can see it, and how long it is kept.
• Purpose limitation, location data used for safety and emergency response, not performance monitoring or attendance tracking.
• Voluntariness where possible, opt-in for enhanced tracking, with an alternative (such as check-ins) for travelers who decline.
• Written acknowledgment that is specific rather than buried in a handbook.

Data minimization, retention, and access control

These four controls do most of the privacy work:

• Minimize. Collect only what the trip requires. Do not retain continuous location history when an itinerary and check-ins suffice.

• Restrict access. Limit visibility to a named group, typically the travel manager, security lead, and a designated HR contact, with role-based permissions and an access log.

• Secure the data. Encryption in transit and at rest, multi-factor authentication for administrators, and vendor security review.

The privacy-versus-safety trade-off, stated plainly

There is a real tension here, and pretending otherwise undermines trust. More visibility helps in a crisis; less visibility protects privacy. The resolution is not to pick a side but to make the trade-off explicit and proportionate:

• Match visibility to risk, not to convenience.
• Tell travelers when enhanced tracking is active and when it stops.
• Give travelers a way to see what the company sees about them.
• Review the program annually and after any incident to confirm the tracking level still matches actual risk.

State comprehensive privacy law summaries Mobile health and location data guidance

Writing a Business Travel Emergency Plan Your Team Can Use

An emergency plan is only useful if people can follow it under stress. Keep it short, specific, and easy to find. Store a copy on your intranet, in the travel policy, and in the traveler's pre-trip packet.

A workable plan covers these steps:

1. Detect: Know how travelers and the company learn about an incident, such as a traveler call, a risk alert, or a news report. Planning for flight delays with private car backup shows how to arrange that support in advance.
2. Notify: Define who gets the alert, in what order, and through which channel.
3. Respond: Name the person who decides the next steps and the vendors who can help, including transportation and medical support.
4. Communicate: Keep the traveler and their family informed on a set schedule.
5. Record: Log the incident, actions taken, and time to response.
6. Review: Meet after the incident to find what worked and what needs to change.

Run a tabletop exercise at least once a year. Pick a realistic scenario, such as a canceled flight at night or a traveler who misses a check-in, and walk through the steps.

Choosing Safe Ground Transportation for Business Travelers

Ground transportation is one of the most overlooked parts of a travel program. Ground transportation is one part of a travel program to consider. Read the detailed drivers-based alternative for corporate travel to compare how it fits into your program.

When you choose a service, consider which features your travel program requires.

Regal Limousine provides chauffeured airport transfers and corporate travel services across South Florida. For current rates or a quote for your travel volume, contact Regal Limousine directly.

The article's guidance on ground transportation comes down to choosing a service that fits a program's requirements, so here is a short summary of what to weigh.

Setting Up Your Duty of Care Program Next Steps

Start with a short inventory: who travels, where they go, and which trips carry the most risk.

Then test it. Run one tabletop exercise, review one recent trip, and fix the gaps you find. Duty of care improves through repetition, not a single document.

Regal Limousine provides corporate travel services and airport transfers across South Florida. Book your ride in seconds.

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