The travel buyer community is working hard to increase Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. In our latest DEI Thought Leadership – Supporting LGBTQ+ business travellers – we explore where travel managers and their TMCs can help support LGBTQ+ employees on business travel.
We asked the report’s contributors to highlight some of the strategies to put in place to help better support LGBTQ+ travellers and acknowledge the complexities the community faces.
- Work with your TMC and its risk management partner on destination risk assessments. Even if identifying as LGBTQ+ is not illegal in a country, social attitudes might be conservative.
- Ask travellers to consider what apps they have on their mobile phones that might reveal personal details about themselves. And prepare them for potential questions that may be asked at immigration, such as about a spouse.
- Engage support from HR and legal teams from the country the traveller is from and the one they’re going to. And ask employees living in international destinations to share tips on lived experiences. Also, research online for anecdotes and suggestions to better understand what challenges there may be.
- Refer to advice and destination guides from LGBTQ+ associations and charities such as Stonewall, IGLTA and GLAAD. These provide information on societal attitudes, as well as legislation and how it will influence any member of the LGBTQ+ community.
- With your TMC, conduct a risk assessment of how you would remove travellers in an emergency, if needed.
- Share information on local laws with all business travellers. Make all your travellers aware that some destinations may carry some risk to their LGBTQ+ colleagues – whether they’ve disclosed the information or not. Avoid putting them in a position that may cause an issue.
- Work with your TMC to provide updated information on immigration, visas and border control. Find out if all travellers will have access to healthcare that’s available in the visited destination. Include advice such as ensuring the traveller, if taking any medication, has enough of that medication to take with them. They should also advise the check that the prescription’s name matches the one in the traveller’s passport.
- Have information ready to share on LGBTQ+ friendly hotels, restaurants and venues, as well as any LGBTQ+ support groups in the destination of travel. And remind travellers to be mindful about what they post on their own social media channels while travelling.
- Provide information on airlines that offer a non-binary option for gender selection on tickets. And share details on the countries that allow passport holders a non-binary option.
While the International Civil Aviation Organisation – which sets the standards for machine-readable passports – provides three gender options (female, male or X) only a handful of countries offer this option to passport holders. These include Austria, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Malta and The Netherlands, Canada, the United States, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Australia and New Zealand. - Trans persons can be particularly vulnerable. With many passports, or when buying tickets, there is still the need to choose a gender. Engage with trans-rights organisations who can guide you.
