The 3 Risk Factors to Include in all Corporate Travel Plans
- Written by: iPMI Global
A new survey on business travel reveals how important it is for organisations to understand the risk profile of each individual member of their travelling team, in addition to where they are going and what they are doing.
World Travel Protection, a leading global travel risk management organisation, calls the combination of these three risks factors the ‘Foreseeability of Risk’, which ensures that potential risks are identified and minimised.
Understanding who your travellers are and their individual risk profile should consider travel experience and past work, pre-existing conditions as well as their gender, race and ethnicity, sexuality and physical and mental health. This is important because an Opinium survey* of 500 UK business travellers, commissioned by World Travel Protection, finds that over half of business travellers (57%) have experienced or witnessed negative behaviours when travelling abroad for work.
Around one in five business travellers say they have either noticed or received unwanted attention or been side-lined because of their race or gender, with women twice as likely to say this as men (16% men and 31% women).
Around one in seven (14%) have also felt the need to hide their sexuality or have seen a colleague hide their sexuality on a business trip. Furthermore, one in ten (10%) say that they have or have seen someone else refuse to travel to countries with anti LGBTQ+ laws.
“Witnessing incidences of prejudice and abuse are still too prevalent for business travellers, and when you’re in a different country with a different culture it can be difficult to know how to respond in order not to put yourself or your travelling party at risk,” said Kate Fitzpatrick, Regional Security Director, EMEA, at World Travel Protection.
“This research shows the importance of not only educating your teams about the potential geo-political situation of the destination they’re visiting, but also the local social norms and cultural sensitivities to ensure that, as far as possible, respect and tolerance are top of the agenda on all sides,” continued Kate Fitzpatrick.
*Opinium online survey conducted with 501 UK business travellers, who travel internationally for business at least once a year, from 23 January to 2 February 2023.
