Corporate Journey Management: Best Practices for High-Risk Environments

Before planning begins, it is important that organizations determine the purpose of any proposed trip and evaluate its requirements against business needs. With technological advancements enabling remote work, the first question should be: is physical travel necessary? This assessment is the responsibility of any organization contemplating sending staff abroad, not the traveler who should rightfully expect such considerations to precede their assignment. 

Travel Risk Management (TRM) – a security practice which aims to anticipate, prevent, minimize, and react to potential or unplanned risks facing travelers on their journeys – encompasses the entire process of any trip. Once the decision to travel has been made, a TRM plan is designed to cover all bases in order to ensure employee safety, from assessing risk exposure, to conducting necessary training and pre-travel briefings, through to implementing appropriate security measures during the journey. Effective TRM makes sure travelers understand any specialized instructions for their destination, for example what they should do if subjected to a criminal act. 

In the information age, any organization choosing not to conduct research on a destination before sending personnel abroad is a matter of negligence. Consulting online government-issued travel advisories is a sensible place to start, as they provide general guidance for citizens in addition to critical information such as embassy locations and contact numbers. In many cases, travelers should be advised to register their presence with their embassy upon arrival.  

For higher-risk destinations, a more comprehensive assessment becomes necessary. Organizations should lean on their internal risk intelligence structures or otherwise turn to external providers to evaluate every aspect of their travelers’ security needs. 

More often than not, high-risk travel will require specific training to best safeguard employee safety. Depending on the traveler’s experience, this may range from attending verbal briefings overviewing the current situation to undergoing comprehensive Hostile Environment Awareness Training (HEAT). The latter typically involves residential courses combining theoretical and practical components, including simulated high-risk scenarios such as checkpoint interactions and kidnap response protocols. 

In hostile environments such as Iraq and Ukraine, the provision of physical personal security, in the form of close protection teams, becomes essential. This is beyond the in-house capabilities of most organizations. In such instances, finding a reliable external vendor who can be entrusted with staff safety is crucial, and thus organizations are advised to thoroughly vet the competence of their operators and equipment. Requesting demonstrations of a protection team’s training levels and licensing is not only appropriate but recommended.

In making contact with their protection team, it is key to provide travelers with clear guidance on arrival procedures, including recognition signals when meeting security personnel. Upon arrival by air, travelers should be advised to make telephone contact with the team before exiting arrivals to confirm their readiness.

After contact is made, the close protection officer (CPO) should provide a comprehensive briefing, including introductions to the security team, journey expectations, incident response protocols, and vehicle entry/exit procedures. Throughout trips in high-risk locations, communication between travelers and the security team is of critical importance. The CPO should be equipped with complete itinerary information to conduct proper journey assessments – often including venue familiarization visits to identify layouts, exits, entrances, and existing security measures. While good security teams can adapt to last-minute changes, travelers should be reminded that such adjustments create additional complications.

When selecting the accommodation for travelers, the profile of the venue must be measured against the threat. In some instances, staying at a higher profile hotel is the better choice owing to the level of security measures in place compared to lower profile hotels that leave the travelers vulnerable to easier targeting. There are certainly pro’s and con’s for both and there should be flexibility in deciding on accommodations.  

Ensuring a safe venue for travelers doesn’t end at selecting the right hotel profile, however. Effective venue security requires multiple protective layers, including robust external perimeters, restricted vehicle access with thorough search procedures, controlled lobby access, and keycard-secured elevators. Travelers should be expected to maintain vigilance over their own personal security by consistently locking room doors, employing secondary security measures (door wedges, security chains), and avoiding accommodations near the front of hotels. In regions with specific directional threats, such as Israel following the outbreak of its conflict with Hamas, room selection becomes a tactical decision. In the wake of the October 7 attacks, well-informed travelers avoided rooms facing Gaza, before later shifting their concern to accommodations facing Lebanon and Iran as the threat landscape evolved. Security strategies must remain adaptable to rapidly changing environments, with continuous assessment informing all decisions. 

Whether traveling with security teams or independently, travelers should maintain robust personal security practices:

• Awareness – Stay informed about local developments through media sources and incident alerts available through TRM platforms.
• Profile – Maintain a low profile, adjusting security team visibility based on the present threat level.
• Routine – Avoid predictable patterns. Vary exercise times and meeting schedules to prevent potential threat actors from anticipating your movements.
• Security Layers – Identify effective security measures between yourself and potential threats. For example, sitting inside at the rear of a café offers better protection than an outdoor table.
• Communication – Maintain contact with your security team and establish check-in procedures with your line manager. A daily text message may suffice in lower-risk scenarios, while independent travel might require more frequent updates. 

Many organizations employ technology for tracking and monitoring travelers, using smartphone applications that provide near real-time location reporting and proximity-based security alerts. However, technology-based approaches have vulnerabilities, particularly in conflict zones like Ukraine, where high levels of technical surveillance may put tracked travellers at risk.

Ukraine presents unique complications beyond those typical of high-risk destinations. The absence of commercial flights necessitates additional travel days to enter the country via bordering nations such as Poland, Romania, or Moldova. Train travel to Kyiv, while common, faces high demand and frequent disruption due to military action. 

Standard business trips often conclude with casual debriefing, but high-risk travel tends to require more thorough evaluation. It is good practice for organizations to carefully assess the quality of security services provided – traveler feedback serves as a crucial component in this analysis.

By implementing comprehensive travel risk management strategies, organizations can fulfil their duty of care obligations while ensuring employee safety in even the most challenging environments. 

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