PMCI - October 2014

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Business or holiday travel has never been easier, or more dangerous. By Ben Hockman Colombia based security expert and consultant for a leading global risk management firm, Ben Hockman, shows how staying safe is all a matter of being smart I have got off plenty of planes in hotspots around the world, particularly in Latin and Central America and I never feel quite as uneasy as I do in Caracas. The sultry Venezuelan Capital is a witches’ brew of simmering apathy, chaos, resentment and exhaustion, making it one of the world’s most dangerous cities, with an estimated murder rate of 122 in every 100,000 citizens. Like so many far-flung destinations, it´s actually a beautiful city. Mountainous, near the sea and sunny all year round. Not that I ever have any time to enjoy it! Every business traveller has their own “Caracas”; that particular corner of the world that you know reasonably well and yet where the feeling of uneasiness that hits when you touch down never leaves you. The endless search for alpha takes business into ever more obscure, dangerous reaches of the planet, where the lure of a first-mover advantage can outweigh concerns for personal safety. Cheaper air travel has also never made it easier to hop on a plane to close a deal and spending on business travel will rise about seven per cent this year, to roughly USD1.18 trillion, according to the Global Business 14
Travel Association. Likewise, holiday destinations have become ever more exotic as couples and families seek to escape the crowds and find themselves that unforgettable pearl not yet “spoiled” by the mass market. Pandering to this, too often the economists will package countries as “emerging” or “frontier markets” and Travel Agents will coo over yet another palm-fringed paradise, with no indication of the civil and societal challenges these destinations face; their huge imbalances of wealth, high unemployment and disillusioned youth, embedded corruption and maladministration, the lack of transport and health infrastructure. All those factors that make visiting them not simply challenging, but potentially hazardous. That is where people like me come in. In an ideal world, we are employed to ensure problems The endless search for alpha takes business into ever more obscure, dangerous reaches of the planet, where the lure of a first-mover advantage can outweigh concerns for personal safety. never arise. In this world, we are sadly too often employed once things have already gone beyond the point of no return. In the first half of this year alone, risk management firms have assisted hundreds of clients in crisis situations, from Latin and Central America to Africa, the Ukraine and the Middle East. Civil unrest in Venezuela; tourist attacks in Kenya; foreign missions evacuating from Libya; separatism in the Ukraine; indiscriminate violence in Israel and Gaza; a coup in Thailand; street protests in Hong Kong; drug-related violence in Mexico; an Ebola virus in west Africa… As well as the catastrophic impact on local populations, these events in the past few months have caused a series of knock-on risk management related issues for thousands of foreign tourists and expatriate personnel. Apart from direct physical risk, being on the ground increases the chances of cancellation of flights and legally questionable detention. Yet the world keeps on turning and you have to keep on travelling further afield. China is likely to surpass the United States in business travel spending by 2016. In such an interconnected world, it is essential not to leave your trip planning to somebody else. You have to be involved in how you are going to manage your own and your family’s safety. The purpose of this article is to try and provide a few things to think about before you leave, so that you don’t ever have to face a worst-case scenario when you’re abroad. Logistics Just like the Private Equity industry, think in terms of “exits”. If you know your route into a country, you should plan your route out simultaneously and give yourself plenty of backup exits and means of transport, if the primary route fails. Do your homework before you travel and make your baseline the advice of your Foreign Ministry, which will likely have a presence on the ground. Understand the kind of terrain you will be travelling to and through; the tragic loss of MH017 is a harsh reminder that even the skies are not secure. Check the safety record of the airline you are travelling with and the route it will fly. What is the age of its fleet, for example?
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