Bohreer, a lawyer in Spring Valley, Texas, was unable to leave Haiti after the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake that threw the country into chaos and killed what governments in the West say was an unspecified tens of thousands of people.
She was robbed heading to the airport during an unsuccessful attempt to get an outbound flight and feared for her survival until a plane chartered by a travel-assistance provider, ASI Group, rescued her three days after the quake.
“I think the company saved my life,” says Bohreer, who was on a Rotary Club of Houston mission to build a well to provide clean water for orphans and arrived in Haiti 45 minutes before the earthquake struck.
Faced with a volatile post-9/11 world — including unrest in the Middle East and last year’s earthquake, tsunami and nuclear-power plant accident that devastated parts of Japan — a growing number of travelers and companies are contracting travel-assistance firms to ensure safe trips abroad.
The travel-assistance companies also are benefiting. Global travel-assistance firm International SOS says revenue increased 20% during the past two years, and it added staff at regional locations worldwide.
The travel-assistance companies monitor current events and provide around-the clock safety, security and medical advice and information. They also provide assistance in emergency situations and coordinate evacuations.
Besides growing concern about employee safety, corporations are contracting travel-assistance companies to meet insurance obligations and avoid liability lawsuits.
“The incentive for companies to keep their travelers safe and protect themselves from any potential litigation has contributed to more companies developing and communicating safety procedures,” says Joseph Bates of the Global Business Travel Association. “Travel managers are looking to create policies and communicate with executives before they hit the road, reminding travelers about easily avoidable mistakes.”
Last year, International SOS and its partner, Control Risks, evacuated more people — 3,052 — for security reasons than the U.S. State Department. The two firms evacuated 1,500 people from Libya, 1,250 from Egypt, 149 from Tunisia, 127 from Bahrain and 26 from Japan.
Another travel-assistance company, FrontierMEDEX, which acquired assistance firm ASI Group four years ago, evacuated more than 900 people from Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, according to FrontierMEDEX Vice President Kieran Battles.
“That number doesn’t sound like a high figure, because our approach is preventative,” Battles says. “Our pro-active intelligence enables us to get people out before they have to evacuate, reducing risk and cost.”
The State Department says it assisted more than 2,800 people who evacuated foreign countries last year and 16,700 in 2010. The State Department, which charges for its evacuations, says it charters transportation when commercial transportation isn’t available but “encourages people to prepare their own plans to depart unstable or dangerous situations.”
The department charges evacuees by air what an airline would charge for a full coach fare.
Rates that travel-assistance firms charge companies vary, depending on number of travelers and expatriates, travel destinations and other factors. International SOS says its services cost a large to midsize company $2 to $5 per trip. For an individual traveler on a short trip, International SOS usually charges $84 for safety information, evacuation coverage and other benefits.
Travel-insurance policies sold by many companies may include evacuation coverage.
Charlie LeBlanc, president of security services for FrontierMEDEX, says the State Department does the best it can during evacuations, but the department’s limited staff at embassies and consulates can make communication difficult during emergencies.
The State Department says that, during a major crisis, it establishes around-the-clock task forces in Washington to answer calls and e-mails from U.S. citizens abroad and their families in the USA. “If an embassy requires more manpower on the ground, officers and locally employed staff from all over the world may be temporarily assigned to serve in the affected area,” the department says.
Diane Ritchey, editor of Security magazine, a trade publication, says communication between corporations and their employees was difficult during the unrest in Egypt. Many corporations had an employee’s mobile phone number but no other means to communicate. Multiple ways to communicate, including a land-line phone, text messages and social networks, are important, Ritchey says.
Ritchey recommends that corporations and individual travelers use travel-assistance companies, because they “often know the lay of the land better than anyone else and have contacts in countries that are most volatile.”
Rating countries for risk
How risky is it to travel abroad? In late March, the State Department had warnings about traveling to 31 countries.
The State Department says it issues a warning “when long-term, protracted conditions that make a country dangerous or unstable lead the State Department to recommend that Americans avoid or consider the risk of travel to that country.”
A warning also is issued when the U.S. government’s ability to assist Americans is “constrained” because of closure of an embassy or consulate, or a staff reduction, the department says.
A USA TODAY analysis of FrontierMEDEX’s worldwide threat map indicates 13 countries, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Western Sahara territory of Africa that’s disputed by Morocco pose a very high security threat for travelers. Nine of the 13 countries are in Africa, two are in the Middle East and two are in Asia.
FrontierMEDEX rates 37 countries — including six in the top 30 visited by Americans — as posing a high security threat. They include Mexico, the foreign country most visited by Americans, and Jamaica, the eighth-most-visited by Americans.
A medium-security threat exists in 67 countries. They include the Dominican Republic, Americans’ fourth-most-visited country, and India, the 12th-most-visited.
With so many countries posing risks, more corporate travel managers are relying on travel-assistance companies for information in advance of travel by their employees and for tracking employees once they’re abroad.
Corporations “increasingly have a duty of care to protect employees from risks when traveling,” Ritchey says.
Cindy Heston, a corporate travel manager for an insurance company, says her company’s security department must approve all foreign hotels and ground transportation. To ensure communication in a crisis, employees must carry a company-issued “mobile device” and provide emergency contact information.
“When 9/11 occurred, it struck home,” says Kathy Hall-Zientek, who manages corporate travel for Moog, an aerospace manufacturer in Elma, N.Y. “We did a lot of soul-searching and realized we had a duty of care for our employees.”
Moog contracted International SOS, and it marked the beginning of a new security consciousness within the corporate travel department. Hall-Zientek now receives up to 10 e-mails each morning from International SOS with security updates about countries where Moog employees are traveling.
If there is a security concern, Hall-Zientek will often call International SOS for more information before her company decides on a course of action. Moog has never had to evacuate an employee, she says.
A tale of 2 evacuations
Villanova University student Anne Chambers was evacuated by International SOS during the unrest in Egypt in January 2011.
Chambers, who was studying abroad at the American University in Cairo, said students had signed up for seats on evacuation flights arranged by the State Department, but she and her parents opted for the quicker services of International SOS.
She and nine other students boarded a private bus and, after passing through a few military checkpoints with tanks nearby, arrived in 30 minutes at the airport. They were directed to a VIP area and boarded a flight to Paris.
“International SOS did a wonderful job,” Chambers recalls. “The evacuation was very organized.”
In chaotic situations, though, things don’t always go smoothly. Bohreer, the Texas lawyer who was evacuated by a travel-assistance company after the Haiti earthquake, says she was told that she and others in her Rotary Club group had only 15 minutes to find and board their chartered rescue plane after it landed at Port-au-Prince airport.
When the group arrived at the airport, guards refused to let them through the doors. The airport was mobbed with locals and foreigners, and no one was allowed to enter the terminal.
Bohreer says her group befriended Australian journalists who waved media credentials and were allowed inside. The Rotary Club group followed the journalists, pushed past the guards who again tried to stop them and ran toward the runway.
On the tarmac, the group couldn’t find the tail number of the rescue plane, because there were so many commercial, relief and military planes. U.S. Army soldiers eventually helped them find the chartered prop plane, and it took off with 16 passengers for a 25-minute flight to the Dominican Republic.
“We were the only plane that took off that day before the airport was shut down,” Bohreer recalls. “It was the end of a harrowing experience I lived through and don’t want to go through again.”
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