Contact Us
When it鈥檚 your responsibility to keep people safe on the road, you really want to know what鈥檚 coming around the next curve.
That鈥檚 why advance work is such a fundamental part of what we do, and that鈥檚 why travel intelligence 鈥 before, during and after a trip 鈥 is so critical to program success.
Before the trip
Before the detail starts, we鈥檙e doing advance work. In some cases, we鈥檒l be in the country personally to do the advance. In others, we鈥檒l be doing desk research from afar.
We鈥檙e busy and under time pressure. We might be working one detail while preparing the next, or juggling multiple projects at once, planning different trips to different places.
Pre-trip intelligence needs:
For any individual trip, we need overall travel intel and threat information for the country, region and city that we鈥檒l be traveling to. We also need specific information on exact locations as part of advance work.
There is a ton of information available from open sources, but this information needs to be sharply curated. There is no time to sift through long reports and background information from many different sources. We want concise, selective information on what鈥檚 most important now and in the immediate future.
Pre-trip travel intelligence resources:
General travel risk advisories from a variety of government agencies are a good place to start. They鈥檙e free, they provide a quick overview, and many rely on their 鈥渙fficial鈥 opinion.
That said, governments must carefully craft their official statements and vet their analyses across several desks. This process adds time between any new incidents and the release of the information to the public. Also, government advisories are written under the constraints of official policy. These challenges make them a good source 鈥 but not the only source.
For good introductory English-language government resources, check out:
- US Department of State鈥檚 travel advisories
- The UK鈥檚 Foreign and Commonwealth Office鈥檚 travel advisories
- Australia鈥檚 Smart Traveler advisories
The U.S. State Department鈥檚 Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) travel warnings bring things up a significant notch. They are better researched, more detailed, and far timelier.
Although OSAC鈥檚 news is rarely 鈥渂reaking鈥 and may be filtered through a U.S. Department of State perspective, their advisories are practical and useful. Analysts in the commercial sector rely on OSAC analyses as one of their many tools. Protective teams will want to check out OSAC鈥檚 鈥淐rime and Safety Reports鈥 and 鈥淎nalyses鈥 in particular.
OSAC offers protection professionals a secondary benefit: the opportunity to collaborate with professionals across related industries. If you haven鈥檛 joined an OSAC Working Group yet, you should consider doing so. In addition to sharing lessons learned and comparing response protocols, these groups are excellent forums for incident detection and validation.
Incident reporting software tools may also provide you with a sense of context by highlighting recent security-related incidents.
Finally, let鈥檚 not forget the importance of on-the-ground resources: Fresh intel from trusted local sources is vital. They鈥檒l often give you a different picture than other reports. They know things like when labor strikes are coming, which roads are closed, when to leave to beat the traffic. Establishing and maintaining local relationships through colleagues, contacts, local drivers, collaboration groups as described above for OSAC, or other means, is an essential task for all protective teams.
Just don鈥檛 base your risk assessment on local intel alone. If you ask a local if it鈥檚 too dangerous to visit what outsiders have described as high-risk destinations, they will often say something like 鈥淥h, it鈥檚 not that bad. It used to be much worse.鈥 Remember, they鈥檝e learned to live there, they鈥檙e part of it. As foreigners, we often stand out.
During the trip
We鈥檙e on location, and we鈥檙e busy executing the detail. We have no time for extended background reading. In fact, we don鈥檛 have time for much of anything except taking care of the principal right here, right now 鈥 and looking around the next corner.
Trip travel intelligence needs:
What we need on the road is local incident reports. It鈥檚 imperative to stay informed about what鈥檚 happening situationally 鈥 and location-relevant information has to come as soon as possible.
Let鈥檚 assume you鈥檙e on a detail, inside a major hotel in the central business district of a foreign capital. You鈥檝e prepared well, the day is going fine. The cars and drivers are outside and the support agents are with you. You鈥檙e doing what you鈥檙e supposed to do.
Here鈥檚 what you should care about in terms of incident reporting:
- What鈥檚 happening right around you, at your current venue and in a 5 to 10-mile radius from there?
- What鈥檚 happening on the route to the next meeting?
- What鈥檚 happening around/near the airport?
- What鈥檚 happening around the people your principal is meeting with?
- Any news about your current or next venue?
- Is your principal鈥檚 name or firm showing up in the local news or social media?
- Is there anything going on in the principal鈥檚 life, or back at headquarters, that really matters to the principal? His or her family? Favorite teams?
This is all critical information that you want to know as soon as possible. When the client comes out of a meeting, you want to be in the know, be clear on next steps, and ready to frame expectations.
Let鈥檚 say the principal just heard there鈥檚 a riot in the central square, where our next stop is. When he or she looks at you, you want to be the one who knows what the trouble鈥檚 all about, whether the police have the demonstration contained or not, whether the side entrance to the next hotel is safe, and whether we鈥檙e good to go or not.
Incident reporting matters because the security context can change so quickly. Consider Barcelona, Nice, Paris, Miami, and Brussels. These are all places that rarely received urgent travel warnings a decade ago. But in the last few years, their security context changed drastically and within seconds.
When the security context changes, the protection posture must immediately change accordingly 颅鈥 you can鈥檛 wait until you get back to the hotel and watch CNN.
Trip travel intelligence resources:
Incident reporting tools, e.g., iJet, Dataminr, and Stabilitas all curate and send information on security-related news and other defined incident types 鈥 all in their own way.
Incident reporting should be informed by major wire services as well as by local news sources and validated social media accounts. Ideally, the information should be filtered according to the location of the GPS-tracked car, EP team, principal, and even people the principal is meeting. Consider setting up fixed and roving geo-fences that trigger alerts according to asset locations. Safe zones, areas of caution and other types of locations should also be configured with geo-fencing.
Local, on-the-ground resources supplement centrally-sourced incident reports in important ways. Once you know something is up, you want to work the local network in order to get the freshest possible situational information any way you can. Staying in touch with local authorities 鈥 be it police, other first-responders or embassies 鈥 can also add value fast.
After the trip
After the trip is when we can kick back and relax a bit 鈥 unless we鈥檙e busy getting ready for the next journey. At any rate, this is the time for more in-depth reading, surfing the web, networking or however else you like to stay informed. As always, time is short, so it鈥檚 catch as catch can.
Consider the military鈥檚 process of after-action reviews regarding your intelligence collection and dissemination. What worked well? What didn鈥檛? What assumptions did you have going in to the trip that you鈥檝e updated? Who else on your team needs to learn from your experience?
Post-trip travel intelligence needs:
This is all about sharpening the saw: keeping up on trends and news, regional and local security issues, and whatever else might affect our travels. This might also be an opportunity to learn more about our clients and their businesses鈥 and all the other stuff we want to get better at!
Post-trip travel intelligence resources:
We鈥檙e not going to get into this here. It would take at least another blog 鈥 and we鈥檇 still leave out too much. Suffice it to say that all kinds of sources might be relevant:
- Reports from intelligence analysts
- Blogs and newsletters
- Newspapers and magazines
- Books
- Networking
Filtering the signal from the noise
There are a lot of places to stay informed about. There is a lot of information available on most places, whether open source or proprietary. Absorbing everything on everywhere would be ideal, but it鈥檚 just not practical 鈥 or even possible.
You鈥檝e got to be highly selective about which sources to concentrate on, curate like crazy, and manage your time carefully. Developing reliable information sources and how to channel them, and filtering out the mission-critical signals from the noise, is all-important.
