RISK MANAGEMENT BY NICK EASEN
is – difficult, dangerous or otherwise,” he says. “If business is to be had, then the businessmen will pack their bags.” But it is the ease of travel that is likely to change in 2016. It doesn’t help that the migrant and refugee crisis in Europe threatens to undermine the principle of free movement in the Schengen Area. Hess says this is because business travel continues to become politicised. “The recent cancellation of US visa waivers for those who have travelled to Iraq, Iran, Sudan or Syria in the past five years is a good example of this,” he says.
MITIGATING THREAT Company security departments are start- ing to play an even bigger role in mitigat- ing risk, as chief operating officer at Wings Travel Management, Paul East, explains. “Through their intelligence and advice they can gauge potential issues but, as we have seen over the past months, un- fortunately even the best intelligence in the world doesn’t mitigate all security threats,” he says. Terrorist attacks have heightened sen- sitivities to threats, forcing companies to think more about compliance. In the light of recent developments some buyers have en- hanced their risk management plans even further, especially to high-alert destinations. Adam Knights, managing director for
ATPI in the UK, explains that one major retailer as a result of the Paris attacks
“The jewels of economic growth are still gleaming in some of the more troublesome frontier destinations”
mandated their travel completely. “This company was known for having a relatively fluid policy for its employees in terms of with whom and how they booked – now this isn’t the case,” says Knights. So what are the risks of catching the Zika virus in Recife, or getting kidnapped in Cairo, or carjacked in Tunisia? The challenge for travel buyers is gauging, grading and reacting to threat levels. The short-term reaction is to ban all travel to those risky destinations. But in the medium- to longer- term this isn’t good for the corporation’s bottom line. Hillgate Travel’s director of marketing
Warren Dix says businesses are putting more scrutiny on non-essential trips. “Companies are definitely questioning more non-critical travel and more approval processes are in place to restrict trips to high risk countries now,” says Dix.
CASE STUDY Coffee crops, code words and cops
WHEN THE MOMENT, A DIGITAL AGENCY BASED IN THE WEST COUNTRY, booked travel to
Honduras to film a series of online documentaries about coffee growing and gangs, they knew it would be tricky.
Filming the emotive back-stories over a period of 12 months was one of the most high-risk
BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM
projects the company has ever done. “We did a lot of the usual due- diligence with travel and security, which involved extensive liaising with people on the ground,” explains The Moment’s travel booker. “You cannot beat local knowledge. We even had code words for the team to use when they called
in twice a day, so we would know if they had been kidnapped. “The biggest fright was when a group of masked men jumped out of a vehicle right near the filming team. A few seconds later they realised it was an undercover police team – but it certainly made them jump...”
TOP TIPS
– become adept at dealing with more volatile situations.
security reports, risk data and local knowledge.
approach – we need to do business, so we must travel.
environment where the only constant is change.
THE POWER OF LOCAL KNOWLEDGE Local contacts, researchers, networks and on-the-ground reports are also increasingly coming to the fore (see Case Study). They are able to offer more nuanced advice that are specific to each trip and don’t offer up just blanket advice. A buyer in the media sector says: “Having booked a television shoot in Egypt last year for BBC World News, I found local fixers invaluable to qualifying risk on the ground.” There are also reports of a number of cor-
porations changing their buying patterns in the wake of risk reports, particularly in respect of accommodation. “We are seeing roughly three times the amount of calls where people specifically request advice on where to stay,” explains Walker from International SOS. Some are moving away from preferred international chains and are seeking local accommodation through contacts on the ground. This follows a number of attacks on western chains in Mali and Burkina Faso. Yet others in the trade aren’t convinced of
this strategy, arguing that staying in a local hotel means that foreigners are more likely to stick out. “People feel more at home in common-themed hotels,” says McLeod. “You know what you are going to get, and you feel as though you are being looked after by like-minded people. I don’t see fundamental changes at present.” In 2016 one of the main conclusions is that we’re all going to have to adapt to being in a new, riskier environment when it comes to buying business travel, where the only constant will be change.
BBT MARCH/APRIL 2016 87
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