Egencia's travel management service: perks for healthcare providers include free transaction and onboarding fees, and healthcare hotel rates with an average saving of up to 30% per night. Credit: Getty Images
SEATTLE, USA - Egencia, the business travel arm of Expedia Group, is partnering with global health providers in 25 destinations worldwide to provide three months of free travel management services for frontline healthcare workers.
It launched the Egencia Helping Healthcare travel programme on Wednesday (6 May) to enable healthcare providers to secure hotels for employees who are safe distancing from family or travelling to COVID-impacted areas.
The programme is currently offered in six destinations in Asia Pacific, including Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, New Zealand and Singapore, as well as in Europe, Middle East, South Africa and US.
US-based healthcare platform Apollo, an existing customer of Egencia, has been able to make use of Egencia's travel programme to facilitate the travel arrangements of base of healthcare professionals to hospitals and medical facilities that require extra staffing due to COVID-19.
Healthcare providers will benefit from waived transaction and onboarding fees, access to special healthcare hotel rates with an average saving of up to 30% per night and 24-hour customer service in over 30 languages.
Employees will be able to set up their travel programme after a 45-minute registration process over the phone. After which, they can begin to find and book hotels close to their place of work either online or via the Egencia mobile app, with the option to expense or cover the cost themselves.
"Healthcare providers need their staff to be able to easily find affordable rooms near their workplace, and at Egencia we've purpose-built a program to do just that. It's fantastic to see so many hotel partners unite to support healthcare professionals all over the world through this and other programmes designed with health and safety as touchstones," said Ms Ariane Gorin, president of Expedia Business Services.
The programme also enables healthcare providers to update their employees' travel programme where needed, such as making an area unbookable should it become 'high-risk'. They will also be able to provide travel disruption notifications and updates to their employees through the app or online.