Keeping Safe with Some Solid Advice: Travel Risk Awareness Clarified

Travel risk has become more complex yet staying safe is simple if you follow these six basic principles of security: preparation, awareness, low profile, unpredictable routine, communications and layers of protection.

1. Preparation: There is no substitute and frankly, no excuse for lack of preparation.  Educate yourself about the risks before you travel and plan your mitigation measures.
2. Awareness: Be aware when you travel.  Criminals look for easy targets.  The alert, confident traveler does not present an attractive target.
3. Low Profile: Keep a low profile.  Ostentatious displays of wealth or bragging about your important meeting won’t impress the locals, but it will attract an unsavory element.
4. Varied Routine: Be unpredictable.  If you will be staying somewhere more than a few days try to vary your daily departure time and the route you take to the office.  Look for another coffee shop instead of stopping at the same café every morning.
5. Communications: Stay connected – to the office, to your family, to your friends.  Make sure your cellphone works by activating an international roaming package for your trip or purchasing a local SIM card to ensure you have voice and data.  Don’t rely on the kindness of strangers when you need to make that emergency call.
6. Layered Protection: Layer your protection by using all the tools at your disposal.  Security is a mindset, not just a plan on paper.  The same characteristics that make you a successful businessperson, a star student or a world-changing humanitarian can help you prepare and execute an effective security plan anywhere in the world.

Go forth and be safe!  Please visit the GBTA Risk Committee for additional information and resources.