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The New York Times reports that while international corporate business
travel may be booming, the industry at large faces a turbulent period of new
challenges in travel safety. The Global Business Travel Association has
predicted that spending on business travel would rise about 7% in 2014. At the
trade group's annual convention in Los Angeles, discussions centered on this
increase in travel and the array of considerations required to keep traveling
employees safe.
International events in recent weeks have cast the risks of travel in
a stark light. These events include the recent downing of Malaysian Airlines
Flight 17 in Ukraine and other recent deadly plane crashes elsewhere; the
halting of air routes in the Middle East for fear of ground combat; and the
suspension of some flights to Israel.
John Rose, chief operating officer of iJet, a travel risk management
company, puts it succinctly. “I’ve been at this 28 years," Rose says.
"This is the greatest concentration of threat that I’ve ever seen, because
of the frequency and severity of these incidents, but also because companies
and institutions are global now.”
Common consensus agreed that companies must keep track of their
traveling employees and implement adequate protections to meet duty of care
requirements and avoid legal issues. The intricacies of international travel
dwarf those of domestic travel, and the former are constantly shifting by
nature.
“In the old days, it was Chicago to New York, New York to Los
Angeles,” says Michael McCormick,
executive director of the Global Business Travel Association. “Now, in
a sense, every company is global, and they’re sending their travelers all over
the world to do business.”