Travel Risk Management

As part of risk mitigation, travel risk management has become a popular topic in the past few years. The approach to identifying and managing risk for many is limited to checking the Government of Canada travel advisory web site and keeping hotel room doors locked, cash and credit cards tucked away and ensuring there is Imodium in the toiletry kit. Some companies assume the client in the destination country will be provided a full bubble of protection on arrival. Risks associated with travel, and employers duty to protect are much more complex than this.

As a risk manager, if staff within your organization travel regionally, nationally or internationally, take a moment and consider the following:

• After leaving a late afternoon meeting, a manager is driving through far northern Ontario to another town for a meeting the next day. It is January; there is no mobile phone coverage in the area. The car hits ice, skids off the road and down an embankment. The car is out of sight of the road and the driver is knocked unconscious. How long will it be before the manager is missed and a search is initiated? Will anyone know what route to search?
• A fabric buyer is sent to a South East Asian country to source local suppliers. While in a rural area, the buyer encounters large crowds celebrating an important national anniversary that often results in significant street disturbances. Was this anniversary known prior to the trip? If so, what personal safety measures were put in place prior to leaving Canada?
• An engineer is sent on a three-week assignment in the Ukraine. Sunday morning, while crossing a local street he/she is struck by a car and severely injured. Unconscious, an ambulance takes your employee to a local hospital. Does the engineer have a bilingual wallet card listing emergency contacts, medical history and drug allergies? If he/she does have such a card, who will authorities contact when it is Saturday late night at your office? What will be your response plan?

There are many risks associated with travel, both in and out of Canada. Weather, traffic, political unrest, disease and food-borne illness are but a few. Threats may arise based on the location, the nature of the trip, the business of the company or the profile of the traveler. Overly confident travelers pose risks, just as naïve travelers might. Personal characteristics of the traveller may mitigate or attract risk in specific locales and circumstances.

Duty to protect

Employers have a duty to protect workers no matter where they are. This is typically accomplished through policy, procedure and training.

Part of a comprehensive corporate approach to travel risk management includes:

• Identifying a line in the sand. In what circumstances will travel be prohibited?
• Basing travel decisions on a thorough assessment of threats and the resultant risks to both the corporation and the traveler.
• Categorizing levels of procedural response pre-trip, during the trip and post-trip based.
• Building corporate response capacity – including out of hours incident response.
• Desktop testing of policy, procedures and response capacity.

Technology now offers multiple avenues for monitoring travelers in real time including ways for travelers to periodically check in and stay in contact with the office regardless of where they are. Data sources abound for researching local threats to travelers.

Challenges to consider

Challenges to effective travel risk management include corporate capacity to monitor and respond to traveler needs and events. Identifying threats, and appropriate mitigation strategies in advance can also be a challenge. All too often, pre-trip planning is restricted to checking a government travel advisory web site and possibly seeing a travel doctor if it is an overseas trip. In such cases, a wealth of opportunities to identify and address risk is missed.

Overseas travel presents many of the same risks as travel within Canada. Street crime, natural disaster, fire and traffic accidents can impact travelers regardless of where they are. It is incumbent upon managers to look beyond these more obvious risks and identify local, specific threats and their relative likelihood of occurrence.

In testing online data sources for travel risk, an interesting starting point is to see what others say about Canada. One Commonwealth country advises its citizens planning a trip to Canada to beware of the possibility of random terrorist attacks. Others point to flooding, forest fire and earthquake dangers in specific parts of Canada. While all are true, they provide an interesting perspective on the depth and utility of government travel advisories.

Five point scale

One approach to travel risk management provides a five point scale for ranking country risk (low to extreme) and a graduated approach to risk management commensurate with identified risks. The score could be based on an examination of the following threat indicators (allowing for variations of a score within parts of a country):

• Capacity of local institutions, such as police, health, public transport;
• aspects and strength of rule of law, including government and state institution transparency, corruption;
• government stability;
• presence/recent history of terrorism (includes freedom fighters, liberation groups, politically motivated entities);
• crime (street, organized, targeted);
• public safety issues such as prevalence/access to firearms;
• recent history of civil unrest;
• upcoming events of significance (election, politically charged anniversary, protest);
• history of foreigners/tourists or western interests being targeted;
• road safety;
• environmental concerns;
• public health concerns; and
• specific activities and locale planned for visit.

As one example, based on an examination of the above points for a specific location, it may be determined that in a five-point scale, the destination is a level three country. Based on this, policy and procedure may require the traveler to check in daily by phone, text or e-mail, stay in approved secure accommodations, not go out after dark alone and only use approved drivers. The traveler is provided local, pre-vetted emergency points of a contact, as well as a detailed safety briefing specific to the location prior to departure. A personal safety plan is created and tested.

Prior to departure to a level three country, detailed research is done to identify such things as important upcoming dates (i.e. anniversary of national tragedy, uprising or religious festival), how to recognize a legitimate taxi outside the airport or hotel, areas to avoid in the destination city, numbers used to call emergency service providers (police, fire, ambulance), the contact details for a locally available physician trained to an international standard, and how to make both local and international calls using a locally purchased mobile phone SIM card.

During the trip to the level three country, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week remote monitoring/emergency call centre services are offered, complete with plans that are flexible enough to address events such as a medical emergency, natural disaster, local/regional instability or the arrest/detention of the traveler.

Post-trip, the ideal is for some form of debriefing including assessment of strengths and weaknesses of the plan and resources in the face of the reality of the trip and application within policy and procedure of lessons learned.

For some, travel risk management goes further. There are concerns over brand management and reputation protection, safeguarding of intellectual property and physical assets. All require mitigation measures unique to the destination, nature of t
he threat, purpose and form of the trip.

A robust, holistic approach to travel risk management is not only an employer’s duty, it can save money, enhance business continuity and in some cases – save lives.

Mark LaLonde is a senior manager with Canpro King Reed Global. He travels and works extensively in challenging environments helping companies enhance human safety and security.