We will go back to some of our tweets of interest
of the past week and expand further on the indicators that we
presented as they affect the security situation of a country. When we
produce vulnerability assessments for our clients, six threat factors are
analyzed and assessed while four hazards are also analyzed and assessed. If
gaps are identified they are covered by atmospherics elements. The goal of
our tweets is to highlight and provide examples of the research that
we do.
From 27 June:
1. Travel alerts should not be the primary method of situational awareness for travelers but should be viewed as a complement to any accurate vulnerability assessment. Personal safety while abroad should never solely rely on reactive news. Stay safer with us, contact us!
2. When traveling to riskier countries how important for you to know beforehand the likelihood of events to come to keep you safer?
Our comment: By definition "travel alerts" are defined by the U.S. Department of State as "for short-term events we think you should know about when planning travel to a country." An example can include H1N1 outbreaks. Travel warnings are defined by them as "when we want you to consider very carefully whether you should go to a country at all." Some countries such as Canada have different terms that fall under the same definitions above. For example, "A Travel Advisory either recommends that Canadians avoid “all travel” or “non-essential travel” to a country or region and, in some cases, that they leave that country or region." We could go on and offer examples from other countries but we believe that the scope has been properly illustrated.
To recap,
most governments offer two types of travel recommendations; one which is to
warn their citizens of an event that could negatively affect their persons for
a short term while the second addresses potentially more significant issues
that could imperil travellers. By definition these two distinct services appear
adequate for travelers however the facts often do not add up. The big gap that
emerges is the timeliness of the alert or warning. Often the alert is issued
following the actual event while the traveler is abroad and this
constitutes the circumstances for the majority of alerts. Less the norm are
alerts that are near real-time, such as here.
At other times questionable or futile information is offered such as Canada's "advisory against all travel to the Iraqi border".
Government travel recommendations are still
a dependable service to
travelers however the timeliness and over
cautiousness are understatements and need to be appreciated fully.
For example, you are in a given country when a sudden and violent coup d'etat
is in progress very near your hotel. What are the odds that you were forewarned
by your government? Good question that has merit. What can be done to avoid
such a situation or is it even possible? For other situations governments can
issue a travel alert based on past events that are recurring that may
nonetheless not happen this time for whatever reason.
Some companies that specialize in travel risk management offer "for a fee services" such as providing insight into what a past event is likely to mean, or less often, to quantify the odds of a given event to materialize that is often partly based on governmental advice or news items. In all cases they rarely offer suitable time for travelers to properly react and
adjust, well in advance of an event. The information which often can be crucial to the traveler was
delivered too late, is of no intelligence value and
is reactive in nature.
Our
outlook: We
deliver open source intelligence for
our clients so they remain safer while abroad. We accurately offer a full
vulnerability assessment for risks, threats as well as hazards well in advance of events likely
to occur thus providing robust situational awareness at all times.
On a
courtesy basis we have offered two vulnerability assessments, including one valid for Cuiaba, for the duration of the 2014 FIFA World Cup. The
assessment is understandably generic in nature yet offers excellent insight into what makes PAR-SEC Consulting better suited than governmental travel advice and sets us apart from our competition.
We welcome inquiries so we can determine your security needs. Your first consultation is always free. We invite you to review our past twitter posts @parsecconsult as well as this blog's entries. We encourage feedback and questions to our e-mail:parsec.consulting@gmail.com
Attribution: copies and
redistribution of the above material in any medium or format
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is credited by using full link of present blog.
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