NEWS NETWORKS TRAVEL BY MARTIN FERGUSON
American Express Business Travel team, which also manages the company’s ar- rangements to non-conflict zones, works closely with Pereira and journalists in the field. However, the nature of being on the front line means correspondents and cameramen must often rely on local fixers and networks of contacts. The travel programme is, therefore, unique when compared with other industry sectors. Tim Campbell supervises a team of busi-
Journalists observe the battle for Kobane from a hill close to the Turkish-Syrian border in Suruc, Turkey, October 2014
have a much higher-than-normal toler- ance of risk. We must enable them to do their jobs in the safest possible way,” he says. “The person responsible for travel risk within a normal global company may only have to deal with two or three crises in their career. We see six to eight a year.” Pereira jokes that to do his job, or be on the front line, you have to be “gung ho”. And it is precisely because of the organisation’s relentless desire to get to a story that risk assessments take place. “You don’t want to be known as the person who says no, and prevent the correspondents from chasing a story,” he admits. “You have to think about how to mitigate risk and support the teams as much as you can.” At the time of writing, ITN still has crews operating in Syria and Iraq, but has not sent teams to Egypt this
BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM
“You don’t want to be known as the person who says no, and prevent the correspondents from chasing a story”
year partially because of the risk faced by international journalists. Three Al Jazeera reporters are currently serving seven-year jail sentences, and threats are continually made to the media.
CONTACT NETWORKS ITN has a travel management company (TMC) implant at its London headquarters responsible air and hotel bookings. The
ness travel consultants at Statesman Travel. In recent years the TMC has worked with a number of newspapers and media com- panies. “Travel programmes and policies for these types of organisations have to be extremely flexible,” he says. “It’s impossible to forward-plan. The nature of breaking news means travel is pulled together at the last minute. We book flights and assist with visas in places such as Baghdad and Erbil, but movements on the ground tend to be lead by the journalists and their fixers. What’s important is that we maintain an open line of communications with news desks, editors and correspondents.”
NON-CONFLICT ZONES Reacting to breaking news stories in non-conflict zones also has its challenges, according to Campbell. When Nelson Mandela died in December 2013, one of Statesman’s clients needed to send a six-man team to South Africa. “The world’s media were descending on one place at one time, so finding flights and accommo- dation for a group carrying equipment was a real test,” he says. In 2012, five-year-old April Jones was abducted and murdered in the small Welsh village of Machynlleth. With the world’s media again on location, TMCs faced even more acute challenges. “A lot of people were being sent there, but it was a very small town with limited accommodation. You turn into an old- fashioned travel agent, combing through websites for local B&Bs,” says Campbell. Statesman’s consultants were booking flights and hotels in Crimea during the
BBT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2014 55
Photo: Björn Kietzmann/Corbis
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