Joseph Fredericks
During the roundtable discussion I moderated at Business Travel iQ's Responsible Travel Management conference it was clear that there is acute apprehension for unknown destinations and feelings of uncertainty among travel buyers.
The decision to go into these countries is often made by those in other departments, such as sales or business development, in line with the strategy requirements of that company.
It's then up to the travel managers to make the checks after the decisions have been made. In some cases the travel policy is almost an afterthought.
Understand risk tolerance
It's important for travel managers to understand the tolerance level of risk within their company. Each company is unique and has its own culture and appreciation. There's the extreme example of the BBC case that we heard at the Responsible Travel Management conference where the tolerance is high, whereas in other companies it will be low.
If the company has a local office near where they are sending travellers, they can tap into those local sources as they will have more experience. If they do not have those local connections then many travel managers will follow the same process as those around the table when assessing destination risk.
- Look at the advice of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO)
- Get advice, reports and incident updates from their security provider
- Make an in-house assessment
There are other tools out there that bring a general picture from online sources such as social media, using data and algorithms to spot potential threats. I think these still need the human factor to bring a qualitative element. Otherwise you get only a partial picture.
Could individual traveller profiles help?
The company may want to go to the destination but any risk ultimately comes down to the individual traveller. We discussed whether companies should consider independent travel risk profiles. In theory it's a good idea but we weren't sure it would work in practice. There could be some categories such as female travellers or LGBT but getting detailed information could lead to legal or privacy issues.
It's more about recognising that a different type of traveller could be at risk than another in particular countries. A heterosexual traveller going to a country where homosexuality is illegal might be at moderate risk, but it would be a higher risk for a gay or transgender traveller.
When it comes to the safety of a destination or traveller there are several factors including
- Infrastructure, eg quality of roads, mobile signal, local security
- Stability in government
- How friendly its people are to foreigners
- If there are busy tourist areas that are prone to pickpocketing or petty crime
Simplify education for travellers
Education for travellers needs to be more concise. Travellers are inundated with reports and don't read them cover to cover. People are comfortable with painting their own picture from more sources like the news and social media so travel and risk managers need to get through that. Some of those around the table had started to use face to face or telephone training, which are becoming more popular ways of training. Another buyer suggested cutting the information into one or two pages, perhaps with a more visual style.
- Joseph Fredericks is an intelligence analyst at Anvil Group