GEOPOLITICS


Where in the world?


How the fast-changing global, political and security risk map may affect your business travel programme in 2018


By AMON COHEN


matches in Euro 2008 and World Cup 2010. The flags of two competing teams would be lowered into Paul’s tank and he would sit on one to indicate the winner. Were Paul still alive today (alas he met a


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watery grave in October 2010), his acumen in forecasting how global geopolitics will shape business travel in 2018 would surely be little inferior to any human pundit. As many observers have commented, terror- ism, Donald Trump, Brexit, North Korea and Vladimir Putin have made the world feel more uncertain than for many decades. The question for travel managers con-


templating the year ahead is whether this greater complexity and volatility in itself changes how their business assesses and


BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM


O YOU REMEMBER PAUL THE PSYCHIC OCTOPUS? He consistently predicted the correct outcomes of football


manages travel risk? Arguably, risk influ- ences travel programmes in three main ways: does it make visiting a destination more difficult or even dangerous; could it change demand for travel (for example, if a country’s economy slumps); and does it affect the cost of travel, such as through a rise in the price of oil? But security experts don’t size up global


events the same way as the rest of us. For a start, says Jason Keen, senior manager, regional security EMEA/APAC for the software company Citrix, the world only looks more volatile through Western eyes. “It’s always been there,” says Keen. “It’s just that we haven’t been aware of it.” In other regions of the world, he points out, “that kind of instability has gone on for many years. I don’t think an awful lot has changed, except for the way we perceive things,” especially, he adds, because of online content aimed at unsettling us.


As if to prove that plus ça change... for business travel, one needs only look at IATA (International Air Transport Association) figures for the first nine months of 2017. Despite all the noise, global air demand rose 7.7 per cent. In a supposedly wobbly Europe, growth hit 8.5 per cent.


FOCUS ON REAL RISK Business travellers, it appears, keep calm and carry on. Hotel solutions provider HRS says that after a terrorism event the spike it experiences in room cancellations in the afflicted city normally lasts only a few days, while bookings long-term are unaffected. “One thing we have seen over and over again is business continuing in the face of geopolitical challenges,” says Charles Hecker, senior partner of the security con- sultancy Control Risks. “The world feels much more frightening now than it ever has but you have to separate fear from real


BBT January/February 2018 93


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