When an employee is on the road, your company carries a legal and ethical responsibility for their safety. That responsibility does not end when they board the plane. It continues until they are home. Duty of care in corporate travel means knowing where your people are, being able to reach them instantly, and having a plan to get them out if something goes wrong.
Most companies discover their duty of care gaps during an incident – not before. A political protest blocks a city center. A natural disaster grounds all flights. A medical emergency in a country with limited English-speaking hospitals. The companies that handle these situations well are not lucky – they have the right software in place.
This guide covers the best duty of care platforms for corporate travel managers in 2026 – what each does well, where the gaps are, and which type of organization each one suits.
What Duty of Care Software Actually Does
The core function is traveler visibility: knowing where your employees are at all times, matched against live threat intelligence. Beyond that, the best platforms add:
- Pre-trip risk briefings: Destination-specific intelligence before the traveler departs – security conditions, medical facilities, local laws, entry requirements.
- Real-time alerts: Push notifications when a security event, natural disaster, or health incident occurs near a traveler’s location.
- Two-way communication: The ability to send mass messages and receive responses from all travelers in an affected area within minutes.
- Emergency response: Direct access to security, medical, and evacuation support when incidents escalate beyond self-management.
- TMC integration: Automatic ingestion of booking data so every trip is tracked without manual input from travelers or managers.
The Best Duty of Care Platforms
International SOS
International SOS is the benchmark against which every other duty of care platform is measured. It combines travel risk intelligence with 24/7 medical and security assistance – staffed by doctors, security analysts, and logistics specialists in offices around the world. When a traveler calls, they reach a trained professional who can arrange a medical evacuation, coordinate with local hospitals, or advise on safe routes out of a crisis zone.
The platform tracks travelers automatically once booking data is connected, sends location-specific alerts, and provides a live map of all traveler locations for the travel management team. Pre-trip country reports are detailed and regularly updated.
The trade-off is cost. International SOS is priced for large enterprises and the per-employee fees reflect the depth of the response capability. For companies with hundreds of travelers in genuinely high-risk markets, it is worth every dollar. For a 50-person team that mostly travels domestically, it is likely more than needed.
Best for: Large enterprises with high traveler volumes and exposure to high-risk or politically unstable markets.
WorldAware
WorldAware built its reputation on intelligence-led risk management. Rather than generic country-level alerts, WorldAware provides hyper-local threat analysis – distinguishing between different districts of the same city, tracking evolving situations in real time, and adjusting risk ratings as conditions change. Travel managers get context, not just notifications.
The traveler-facing mobile app allows employees to check in, receive location-specific briefings, and contact the response team directly. The dashboard gives managers a real-time view of all travelers overlaid with active incidents. Integration with major TMCs means booking data feeds the system automatically.
WorldAware was acquired by Crisis24 and the combined entity now offers one of the broadest duty of care platforms available – combining WorldAware’s intelligence layer with Crisis24’s physical security and response capabilities.
Best for: Mid-market to enterprise companies that want granular, intelligence-driven risk alerts rather than broad country-level warnings.
Crisis24
Crisis24 operates at the intersection of travel risk intelligence and physical security. Its platform covers the standard duty of care features – traveler tracking, alerts, two-way communication – but its differentiation is the depth of its response capability. Crisis24 employs former military and intelligence professionals in regional offices worldwide, meaning that when a situation escalates, the response is not just advisory.
For companies with travelers in genuinely high-risk environments – extractive industries, humanitarian organisations, government contractors – Crisis24 provides a level of on-the-ground capability that software-only platforms cannot match. The platform also handles executive protection and event security for organisations that need it.
Best for: Organisations with travelers in high-risk or conflict-adjacent markets that need both intelligence and physical response capability.
Anvil Group
Anvil Group specialises in security risk management for organisations operating in complex environments. Where most duty of care platforms focus on corporate travelers in mainstream business destinations, Anvil is built for teams working in frontier markets, conflict zones, and regions with limited infrastructure.
Their approach is consultative – Anvil works with organisations to build custom risk frameworks before deploying the technology layer. The result is a platform that reflects the specific risk profile of the organisation rather than a one-size approach. Response support draws on a network of vetted local contacts in markets where mainstream providers have limited presence.
Best for: NGOs, extractive industry companies, and government contractors operating in high-risk or conflict-affected environments.
TravelPerk
TravelPerk is primarily a travel management and booking platform, but its built-in duty of care features make it a viable option for companies with low-to-medium risk travel programs. The dashboard shows real-time traveler locations pulled directly from bookings, live flight statuses, and basic risk levels by destination.
The key advantage is consolidation – companies already using TravelPerk for booking do not need a separate tool to get basic traveler visibility. The communication tools allow managers to message affected travelers in bulk. For companies that do not require deep intelligence or physical response capability, TravelPerk covers the essentials within the same platform they use to book travel.
Where TravelPerk falls short is in the depth of its intelligence layer. Alerts are drawn from third-party data sources rather than proprietary analysis, and the response capability does not extend beyond the platform itself.
Best for: Companies with low-to-medium risk travel programs that want basic traveler visibility without a dedicated duty of care tool.
Duty of Care Platforms by Organisation Type
Large enterprises (500+ travelers)
International SOS or the WorldAware/Crisis24 combined platform are the standard choices. Both offer the depth of intelligence, breadth of integration, and response capability that large travel programs require. For companies with travelers in genuinely dangerous markets, the choice between them often comes down to which has stronger local presence in the specific regions you operate in.
Mid-market companies (50-500 travelers)
WorldAware suits mid-market companies that want professional-grade intelligence without the full enterprise pricing of International SOS. For teams primarily traveling in stable markets with occasional high-risk trips, a combination of TravelPerk for day-to-day visibility and a dedicated intelligence provider for complex trips is a cost-effective approach.
Small teams and low-risk programs
TravelPerk covers the basics if your team mostly travels within Western Europe, North America, and major APAC cities. For anything beyond that, it is worth investing in a dedicated tool – the cost of duty of care software is negligible compared to the liability exposure of a poorly handled incident.
Key Features to Compare
| Platform | Real-time tracking | Intelligence depth | Emergency response | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| International SOS | Yes | Very high | 24/7 global | Large enterprise |
| WorldAware | Yes | High | Via Crisis24 | Mid-market to enterprise |
| Crisis24 | Yes | High | Physical + advisory | High-risk markets |
| Anvil Group | Yes | Bespoke | On-the-ground | Frontier/conflict markets |
| TravelPerk | Yes (booking-based) | Basic | None | Low-risk programs |
Three Questions to Narrow Your Choice
- Where does your team travel? If 90% of trips are to London, New York, and Singapore, TravelPerk covers your needs. If you have regular travel to Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, or Southeast Asia, invest in a dedicated platform with local intelligence.
- What does your legal exposure look like? Companies in regulated industries or with large international travel programs face significant liability if an incident is poorly handled. The cost of duty of care software is small compared to the cost of a negligence claim.
- Do you need response capability or just visibility? Tracking and alerts are table stakes. The real differentiator is what happens when an alert fires – can your platform actually help get someone out, or does it just tell you there is a problem?
The Bottom Line
Duty of care is not a feature to cut from the travel budget. The companies that treat it as optional discover the cost of that decision during an incident – when it is too late to put the right tools in place.
For large enterprises, International SOS and WorldAware/Crisis24 are the benchmarks. For mid-market companies, WorldAware provides professional-grade intelligence at a more accessible price point. For teams operating in genuinely dangerous environments, Anvil Group’s bespoke approach is worth the conversation. And for low-risk programs, TravelPerk’s built-in tools may be enough to get started.
If you are evaluating your broader travel management stack alongside duty of care, our guide to the best corporate travel management software covers the full platform landscape including TMC integrations.
For a full comparison of duty of care platforms including user ratings, integration support, and pricing details, visit corporatetravelsoftware.com.