Keeping track of delegates in a crisis
Business travel, meetings and events are increasingly global and expose executives to greater risk than ever before. There are politically and climatically driven crises – unrest in Greece and Hurricane Sandy, as well as dangers posed by ‘high risk’ destinations where a business traveller may stand out as a vulnerable target.
There are rudimentary tracking systems in use. TMCs and event management agencies can tell where a traveller ought to be at a given time for a large part of the trip by monitoring itineraries, arrivals, check ins and agendas. As long as communication channels are open and nothing unexpected happens this is all fine.
But what if delegates are scattered in an emergency? Or when individual travel is organised by a PA and we don’t have access to delegate data?
There are a growing number of apps available to support tracking (and research suggests that many business travellers would be happy to be monitored in this way), but what happens if power or signal is lost?
A possible solution is some form of tag. We can tag luggage and locate it to within a few yards – and I predict that soon we will be able to apply similar technology to delegates. Although, it may be a bit of an imposition to ask travellers to give up their anonymity and privacy – would this be taking safety too far?
