Kuala Lumpur - Global travel management company TQ3 has released a crisis management plan to help its partners provide a higher degree of service to customers during crises.

The plan enables the agents to track and locate customers, provide customer support and, if necessary, evacuate them.

In Kuala Lumpur, TQ3 Holiday Tours & Travel general manager, Mr Danny Jee, said: “The plan is proactive and emphasises the central role of the travel agent or travel manager in monitoring and supporting a customer during a crisis by making ourselves more accessible.”

It also provides before and after scenarios. “Our service kicks in when customers make a request to travel. If they are going to a destination we consider unsafe, we will advise them to postpone the trip or do a videoconference,” Mr Jee said.

If they still decide to travel, customers will be given contact numbers at the destination, website address and a 24-hour service line number in Malaysia. “This is to prevent a situation where they call an office only to find out it has shut for the day or weekend,” Mr Jee said.

If customers are caught in a country during a crisis, priority will be to get them out by air.

“If they hold a restricted ticket, we will use our influence to get them seats on other airlines with dues to be settled on return home,” Mr Jee said.

If the airport is closed, the plan is to get them to the nearest (open) airport by every available means.

TQ3 developed its crisis management plan following 9-11 when corporations and families found it difficult to find out details about the whereabouts of their employees or family members.