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PRE-TRAVEL PREPARATIONS
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| In business we are only ever as good as our preparation and nowhere is this more apt than when preparing to travel. In my profession I can be called abroad at the literal drop of a hat. It may be to somewhere where the temperature is minus twenty degrees or somewhere where even thinking in the heat is an exhausting, physical activity. I stepped off a plane onto the airport tarmac at a placed called Hassi Massoud in the Algerian interior, with a wind blowing across the airfield and it felt as if I'd put my face into a fan assisted oven on its highest setting.
As a consequence, over the years I've equipped myself with clothing suitable for most environments and most situations within those environments. In Russia for example, even when it gets to 100 degrees in the shade (a very rare occasion I might add), businessmen will still be wearing a suit and tie. This is with the exception of the more obvious mafia types, who still insist on wearing the ubiquitous black, roll neck sweater with a suit and leather overcoat. There is still a formality about doing business in the former Soviet Union and you need to conform. By contrast, in Central Africa, the climatic conditions have created a more relaxed approach to the attire of business.
Preparation is not simply limited to suitable and appropriate clothing, but it is a comprehensive checklist of Actions, Education, Training and Procedures, plus suitable kit. What we will look at first are the final checks we all should make if we are to ensure a safe and smooth trip. We are talking about mental preparation. If your destination is the Third World then you will need a good dose of 'frustration adjustment'. You will only increase, to a very high level, your travel stress if you do not spend some time in adjusting your expectations to the reality of how it will actually be on the ground.
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| IMPORTANT PAPERS |
If you travel regularly or if infrequently, it behoves on you to leave at home a well ordered system of personal documentation:-
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- A Will
- Birth & Marriage Certificates
- Power of Attorney for spouse or relative
- Any deeds, stocks and shares, investments
- Insurance policies, both personal and property
- Tax and accounting papers
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| I pack in accordance with the list and tick off as things go into the case or bags. My own way of doing this is to lay everything out prior to packing and checking them off. This means everything - cash, cards, visas, vaccination certificates, clothing, kit, etc. My rule is "take nothing with you that you cannot afford to lose" - for example: |
- Valuable or expensive looking jewellery
- Irreplaceable family items
- All unnecessary credit cards
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Leave a copy of your passport, visas, travellers' cheque numbers, itinerary, driver's license and birth certificate at home, and obtain an international driving licence. If you are travelling in a particularly difficult region, you may want to consider leaving another set of copies of these with your local Embassy or Consulate.
Always try to memorise your passport number and date and city of issue. For extended trips you should also register with your Embassy or Consulate. With travellers' cheques cross the numbers off your list as you use them. If on business, ensure you have the address and a map of your local office or any offices you intend to visit, together with the phone numbers. Plan also for easy Emergency Notification to you. Your family should have all necessary phone numbers such as the Embassy or Consulate, your local company office, your hotel, etc. They should have a detailed itinerary of your visit. Your home office should also have a complete itinerary, as should the local office manager. Prepare and carry at all times, a card giving details of your blood type, health problems, any known allergies, required medications, travel insurance company details and personal contact's numbers in case of emergencies.
You may wish to take the gold Rolex so as to impress the people you are meeting, but if you value anything over and above its replaceable insurance value then leave it at home. Remember, it is not simply the value of the item stolen but the significance of the long-term damage. Computer notebooks are a good example of this. The physical loss can be insured, but not the loss of vital information, if it is not backed up. Nor can you insure for the loss of that information to others who will profit from its acquisition.
Prior and accurate information about a city, country or region are vital for people who are either working abroad or are going to work abroad. If you are working for a company and if it is well organised, it may well provide the following: - |
Travel Warnings. These serve as a way of keeping people who are working abroad up-to-date on matters which may effect them. Companies should not believe that their people on the ground are always au fait with what is happening. Often, and particularly in more repressive countries, internal news is severely repressed. Warnings are also a way of enhancing travel briefings for people about to travel.
Pre-Travel Briefings. These should be structured around a generic, core theme which deals with such factors as awareness, avoidance of routine, maintaining a low profile, crime prevention, aspects of anti-surveillance, how to protect proprietary information etc. They should specifically contain country-specific intelligence embracing topical travel warnings. On occasions, the briefings can extend to intensive practical courses on such matters as Defensive Driving, First Aid and Survival Skills in hostile environments.
Terrorist Threats. There has been an emergence throughout the eighties and nineties of anti-Government factions targeting the tourist as a means of bringing world attention to its fight, whilst at the same time seriously affecting the economic well-being of that country. Examples include the murder of the tourists at Luxor in Egypt, kidnapping and subsequent murder of tourists in Yemen, kidnapping and subsequent murder of British and American tourists in Uganda, murder of any foreigner in Algeria by Muslim fundamentalists, kidnapping of tourists in Kashmir and attacks on tourist centres in Turkey.
In economic terms, terrorism constitutes the greatest threat to tourism, particularly in those places where attacks have been against civil aviation, tourism property and the international visitor. According to IPCO - Interpol statistics, 22 tourism-related cases of terrorist attacks have been reported since 1990, claiming 92 deaths and 96 injuries Their effect on the destinations concerned was powerful and cost billions in lost business and job opportunities.
Increasingly, retaliatory attacks are being carried out around the world against Western targets, particularly American ones. Attacks can come from organisations previously unknown, but who feel some solidarity between themselves and, say, the states of Iraq, Kosovo or elsewhere. Whereas airports and planes were the targets for the terrorist of the seventies, there is now a shift to 'soft' targets, as was the case of the bombing of the Planet Hollywood restaurant in South Africa. The bombing attacks against the American Embassies in East Africa in August 1998 was part of the orchestrated campaign by the Islamic fundamentalist movement under the control of the Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden, of which more later.
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| HEALTH & SAFETY - GENERAL |
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Anyone who visits Third World countries must be adequately briefed, not only on the security issues, but also on the whole range of issues which affect health and safety. The safety aspect is really one of avoiding accidents. I carried out a Risk Analysis some years ago in Russia for a company that was building a factory some way out of Moscow; really in the middle of nowhere. The assessment highlighted a whole range of corporate security issues, but at the top of the list in terms of 'probability' of a serious accident occurring was the likelihood of a traffic accident to a senior executive whilst travelling between Moscow and the south on what are remote and dangerous roads.
The condition of the roads, poor condition of most vehicles, speed at which vehicles are driven and a complete lack of adherence by most road users to any rules of the road, make any long distance rural journey in Russia extremely hazardous. Link this to a complete lack of communication in rural areas to summon help and the parlous state of that help when, or even if, it arrives all conspire to make a journey dangerous. |
| THE BUSINESS TRAVELLER & THE TOURIST |
The nature and degree of risk is different for the two broad categories of person abroad. For the average tourist on a package holiday, they will not be specifically targeted due to their renowned wealth, political position or business ownership. They are broadly anonymous, but potential victims by dint of the fact that tourists, as a group, are attractive to criminals. They are often in possession, foolishly, of large amounts of cash, cameras (both still and video) and are relaxed and careless with their possessions and themselves. Villains also know that their victims are probably never going to return simply to give evidence in a theft prosecution, possibly a year after the event.
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| PROCEDURES |
In simplistic terms, the object is to assess the stability of a country or region of that country or even a city or town therein. You can even reduce that to the security in a particular part of the town and in particular the security of a specific hotel in that part of town. The exercise doesn't stop there, as it is necessary to assess the most appropriate part of the hotel that serves our security best. But lets first backtrack to the wider picture. We need to know the 'socio-economic' health of a country we intend to visit.
It should be an absolute minimum requirement for anyone who travels abroad to keep themselves up to date with world current affairs. It is no good when you are tasked with a trip to some far-flung corner of the world to spend the first hour trying to find it on the map. As a professional security consultant, everything that happens in the world is bread and butter to me, as I have no way of knowing where I will be going next. One obviously cannot keep an eye on the very fine detail of a region or country, but there is no excuse for not knowing the very broad outlines of what is happening in a region.
Take, for example, the former Soviet Empire, where there has been a breakdown of order and a shift in the morality of its people. Little in the way of taxes is now collected in many of the republics. This is due to the penal levels in force, resulting in the populace hiding most of its earnings under the floorboards. In doing so, they become technically criminals, and as such are a target for the real criminals, who now have a hold over them and who will threaten reporting them to the Tax Police if they do not comply with some favour or action demanded. |
| FORTHCOMING TIPS |
Keeping abreast of changing International conditions, health advice and personal security overseas.
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