As any intentional traveler – that is, one who is intent on the mission – knows, the only constant in today’s world is unpredictability. But oft times, it’s the traveler’s focus on the business at hand that can elevate the level of personal risk when the unpredictable strikes.
Yes, organizational preparedness is vital as companies try to safeguard business travelers during emergencies. Yet even the best-equipped organizations can only do so much. What many fail to address is that no single stakeholder can manage everything that can go wrong during a disruption. Thus, preparing individual travelers is equally as important as readiness across the broader organization.
The most prepared business travelers aren’t necessarily those who travel most frequently; rather, they’re the ones who have been educated on how to proactively navigate disruptions.
“Prepared travelers are often more confident, adaptable, and better equipped to make informed decisions in real time, particularly during high-pressure situations,” explains Penny Watermeier, EVP customer success at CTM. “Traveler preparedness can no longer be treated as a one-time compliance exercise or a policy document travelers review once and forget. Prepared travelers are taught to keep critical travel documents accessible offline, understand local connectivity requirements, carry backup payment options, and stay aware of changing travel conditions that may affect their trip.”
The Traveler’s Burden
As duty of care/travel risk management programs evolve, the question arises: How much responsibility ultimately rests with the traveler? When travelers believe their organizations will assume all risks, complacency can creep in.
And although it’s important to encourage travelers to sign up for embassy registration programs, including the US State Department’s STEP program, it’s not a catch-all either. “One of the biggest misconceptions travelers have is that their respective home government or local embassy will send a jeep full of Marines or similar to rescue them [during a disruption]. This is not the reality,” says Francis Harrison, regional security director Americas at World Travel Protection.
As we’ve witnessed during the recent Middle East crisis, a travel management company and/or a travel manager – despite their best efforts – may be relatively powerless to help an individual traveler out of a Black Swan event. Whether bookings unravel, visas are cancelled, or travelers find themselves caught in the midst of a natural disaster, there comes a point where responsibility shifts from the travel department or TMC to the individual traveler. But when exactly does that happen?
“There’s no clean handoff in my experience, and anyone who tells you there hasn’t dealt with a real incident,” advises Bruce McIndoe of McIndoe Risk Advisory. “Think of it as a continuum. All three parties need to collaborate to have a solid program. The company owns the infrastructure: The right tools, current risk intelligence, accessible emergency assistance support, and hopefully making sure the traveler is actually briefed before they get on the plane. Once those conditions are met, responsibility starts shifting to the traveler. They have to engage – read the briefing, keep their location active, and stay reachable,” McIndoe says.
“I see the TMC sitting in the middle. Their responsibility is accessibility and responsiveness when things break down,” he says. “But what I see as the liability reality is, if a traveler wasn’t adequately equipped, you can’t fairly hold the TMC accountable. The question courts and insurers would ask is, Did the company (not the TMC) do everything reasonable to prepare and protect this person? This is why program design and education matter more than policy language.”
A New Take on Duty of Care
Alongside shifting geopolitics, increasingly volatile weather patterns and other unpleasant surprises, travelers are being expected to self-manage more parts of their journey. As a result, duty of care is becoming broader, looking less like a safety net and more like an operating system.
“Modern duty of care has to account for the fact that travelers are not all the same, and a 20-page policy document doesn’t prepare anyone for a real disruption,” explains Chloe Carver, corporate travel practice lead at Acquis Consulting Group.
As organizations place more responsibility on travelers, an overreliance on technology can also create a false sense of security. In fact, technology failures can create significant traveler vulnerabilities. “The biggest one is app dependency without an offline fallback,” McIndoe warns. “Travelers who rely entirely on their phone are exposed the moment they lose connectivity, hit a dead zone, run out of battery, or it gets lost/stolen.”
If you are outside of cellular and WiFi coverage, compatible smartphones can directly connect to satellites to text emergency services. “It is very important to note, however, that a number of countries have restrictions or prohibitions on the importation or possession of satellite communications gear; travelers should understand these restrictions prior to travel,” says Patrick Kane, chair of the Travel Risk Management Community at ASIS.
When technology goes down, so does digital access to 24/7 support. “Critical information is friction-free,” McIndoe adds. “If someone has to hunt for an emergency number at midnight in a foreign city, the program has already failed.”
The challenge extends beyond communications. During a Black Swan disruption, GPS-enabled itinerary tracking is non-negotiable. However, most tracking tools only know where a traveler is booked to be – not where they actually are. “Miss a connection, change plans, go off-script, and you can fall off the map entirely,” says McIndoe.
This is why traveler engagement remains essential. Agreeing on simple check-in protocols with your employer during a trip can help your organization maintain visibility. In the worst-case scenario, Kane advises, “if you do find yourself stranded, the first thing the traveler should do is ensure they are in a safe location, at least for the short term. Once they are safe, the traveler should seek to establish communications with someone; their family, their company, a local contact or all of the above,”
Back to ‘Prep’ School
Realistically, every traveler should receive pre-trip education and training tied to their role during travel. This awareness helps manage expectations and gives travelers the confidence to make proactive decisions when something goes wrong.
“A truly prepared business traveler doesn’t just rely on corporate processes or a travel app. They understand their own role in managing risk,” says Harrison. “They don’t assume that familiar destinations are low risk. They recognize that disruptions in ‘safe’ markets can be just as impactful as those in high-risk locations.”
Harrison points out that the biggest gaps are overconfidence, a lack of personal contingency planning and poor communication discipline. “The goal is not to turn travelers into security experts,” he says, “but to make sure that when something goes wrong – whether it’s a medical event, civil unrest, or a sudden border closure – they know their first three actions, can be reached quickly, and can access the support that’s already been put in place.”
Education needs to extend beyond logistics and should also include insurance.Over the past several years, the planet has witnessed increasing outbreaks of regional conflicts that often have spillover effects into non-war zones. And yet, despite this, many travelers still set off without fully understanding what their insurance does – and does not – cover.
“This is true both for Business Travel Accident (BTA) policies in the corporate space and for leisure travel insurance,” says Harrison. “If travelers don’t know their policy conditions before a trip begins, they can be caught out by fine print exclusions that effectively void cover at the very moment they need it most – for example when traveling to or through higher risk destinations, when war, terrorism or civil unrest clauses are triggered, or when a known event escalates after booking,” he says.
In today’s “polycrisis” environment, travelers simply cannot assume that everything is covered, because it probably isn’t. “The good news is that there are solutions that materially improve resilience: businesses can enhance a standard BTA program by adding security or political evacuation cover, crisis response and assistance services, and pre-trip advisory tools that provide risk intelligence and guidance,” Harrison notes.
Take Care of Yourself
The message is clear: Even the best duty of care program has limits. For travelers, that means not expecting an organization to do it all.
It’s a delicate balance. “Travelers shouldn’t have to reverse-engineer their own support system,” adds Carver. However, they can take greater ownership of their safety in many ways, especially when traveling internationally:
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Download the airline app for every carrier on their itinerary, keep loyalty profiles current, and save both the TMC emergency line and the airline’s direct number digitally and on paper.
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Collect local emergency numbers, local hospital or clinic locations, the nearest embassy or consulate, and store hard copies of your passport ID page, visa, travel insurance policy, itinerary, proof of employment and key medical information offline.
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Understand that health insurance may not be accepted overseas and providers often require payment upfront. Know medical coverage limits, where to seek treatment, or how to contact their insurer/assistance provider in an emergency.
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Verify entry requirements, including visa rules, vaccine requirements and health documentation, close to departure (ideally 4–6 weeks before departure, with a final check again a few days before travel in case rules change). Also, clarify what can and cannot be brought into the country (for example, sat phones, or certain prescription drugs).
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Follow cybersecurity protocols, such as avoiding unsecured WiFi, reusing passwords, and accessing sensitive systems on personal devices without proper protection.
Teamwork During Calamity
“In many cases, the biggest challenge is not a single disruption event, but the compounding effect disruptions can have across an itinerary when multiple flights, suppliers or destinations are involved,” Watermeier says. This is where the value of the travel ecosystem shines: When organizations, suppliers, TMCs and travel managers work in a coordinated way.
For example, in the case of straightforward air disruptions, it can be faster to work directly with the airline. However, for complex itineraries, calling on your broader support network can make all the difference.
“The real TMC value lives in complexity, such as multi-carrier international itineraries, coordinating hotel and ground when an entire day unravels, or situations where someone needs a human to think across multiple suppliers at once,” Carver maintains. “The difficult part is making sure travelers turn to the right place for support in a specific scenario. When someone calls the TMC for an air booking they can’t touch, it wastes critical time during a disruption and degrades trust in the program overall.”
At the same time, travelers may find themselves relying on suppliers to activate their own duty of care measures. “Sometimes, it’s the everyday thunderstorms that prepare suppliers for the worst-case scenarios,” explains Chris McLaughlin, CEO of Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, speaking during the June session of the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth.
“In North Texas, a few days of snow and ice can throw everything off,” McLaughlin says. “We consistently perform tabletop and functional exercises to protect us against isolated events, whether that includes stocking up on diapers, blankets, water and food in our airport, or tornado-proofing the bay areas of our new Aircraft Rescue & Firefighting Stations to keep our equipment protected.”
According to Watermeier, the most effective travel programs recognize that preparedness is shared, not owned entirely by one party. “To avoid visibility breaking down exactly when it matters most, the prepared traveler understands the program well enough to know where the edges and gaps are, and in conjunction with their travel manager, always has contingency plans.”
