Asia Crisis & Security group

Asia Pacic Travel Risk Management Survey- 2010

December 2010
Asia Crisis and Security Group-2010- See copyright notice for details
For further information please contact admin@acsgroup.org

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1.0 Introduction

The purpose of this survey is to provide professionals in the industry with accurate data pertaining to travel risk management, with a focus on hotel selection/assessment policy and vendor assessment use and quality. This survey was conducted amongst ACSG members during the period between 12/10/2010- 02/11/2010. The purpose of providing these ndings is to enable a better understanding of how the industry manages their travelers safety, best practices therein, and where there is potential for improvement.

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2.0 Table of Contents

1.0 Introduction- Page 2 2.0 Table of Contents- Page 3 3.0 Report Summary- Pages 4-7 4.0 Country Travel Threat Ratings: Top correlated threats according to country and type- Pages 8-11 5.0 Travel Security Programs Breakdown- Page 12 6.0 Hotel Selection and Assessment Policies- Pages 13-14 7.0 Vendor Risk Assessment Usage- Pages 15-16 8.0 Program Challenges- Page 17 9.0 Background and Conclusion- Pages 18-19

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3.0 Report Summary

Threats:
Throughout the Asia Pacic region, the top four threats to travelers are as follows:
1. Political Unrest 2. Terrorism 3. Natural Disasters 4. Information Theft

Countries with the highest correlation of these threats are:

1. Political Unrest- Thailand 2. Terrorism- Pakistan 3. Natural Disaster- Japan 4. Information Theft- China (percent of respondents- 82%) (percent of respondents- 91%) (percent of respondents- 61%) (percent of respondents- 60 %)

(Note: Although terrorism has a higher correlation of respondents, political unrest is viewed region wide as a larger threat.)

Travel Security Functions/Tools:

The top four functions of travel security programs currently being used are as follows:
1. Country Risk Assessments- 95% 2. Email Alerts (Reactive)- 94% 3. Medical Response Provider- 90% 4. Travel Tracking Tools- 82% 4
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3.0 Report Summary

The top four functions of travel security programs under consideration are as follows:
1. Self Help Tools- 40% 2. Employee Awareness Training (on-line)- 33% 3. GPS Location Tracking- 32% 4. Employee Awareness Training (face to face)- 20%

Hotels:
75 percent of respondents reported conducting their own in house security assessments of hotels. 50 percent of respondents report conducting hotel assessments at least annually in high risk environments. 89 percent of respondents reported conducting assessments in medium risk environments every two to three years, or never.
The top four hotel security policies currently being enforced upon travelers are as follows:
1. Open to commercial hotel selections with a security assessment- 37% 2. Open to any hotel with a complete security assessment- 30% 3. Restricted to 5-star hotel use only- 27% 4. Subject to commercial requirements- 24%

The assessment of hotels from an in house security team are the most widely accepted and used form of hotel security

assessments. Formal Peer Collaboration is the next in line and the least used and emphasized source is hotel self-assessments.

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3.0 Report Summary

Vendor Assessments:
84% of respondents use at least 2 different vendors for country risk assessments. International SOS is the most widely used vendor with a 67% usage rate.
IJet with 33%. 66% use at least 3.

Next in line was Hill & Associates with 53% and then

Of the 10 respondents who reported using only one vendor assessment source, 80% reported using either International SOS,
or Hill & Associates as their sole provider.

Although 100% of respondents report using at least one vendor for country risk assessments; the use of vendor assessments is
the least emphasized source of information when formulating the risk portfolio of a country.
Merit of Information Sources in Country RIsk Assessments

5.00

4.42 4.00 3.89 3.35 3.51 3.60 3.29

4.25

3.50

2.75

ACSG

Alternate Security Groups

Formal Government

Informal Intelligence Sources

2.00 On the Ground Sister Company Discussions Vendor Assessments

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3.0 Report Summary

Travel Program Challenges:
The top three biggest challenges for managing travel risk programs are: 1. Staff Adherence- 4.66 out of 5 2. Senior Management Support- 4.48 out of 5 3. Time to Conduct Assessments- 4.30 out of 5

Industry Sector:
There were respondents from eight different industries represented in this report. For a complete breakdown of respondents please reference section 9.0 of this report. Despite having a great balance of respondents, there was almost no correlations between industry sectors in any question but one.
When reporting on security tools/functions, the Pharmaceutical/Bioscience/Chemical industry reported an 80% non-adoption rate of GPS location tracking devices as opposed to the 53% industry average.

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4.0 Country Travel Risk Ratings

0 New Zealand Japan Australia Singapore Hong Kong Macau Taiwan South Korea Malaysia Vietnam China Myanmar Sri-Lanka Thailand Bangladesh India Philippines Indonesia Pakistan 0.60 0.66 0.73 0.73 0.76 0.86 0.90 1.03 1.35 1.35 1.46 1.74 1.94 2.03 2.15 2.36 2.38 2.48 3.40 1 2 3 4

This question was designed to obtain a industry wide travel risk rating for the surveyed countries.
to rate the risk level to travelers for each country on a scale of one to ve.

Respondents were asked

For the purposes of the graph the scale has been reduced to four so the variations between countries are more apparent. There were no notable differences in the way in which different industry sectors rate risk to travelers among these countries.
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4.1 Threats to Travelers

Country Threat Breakdown

100

75

50 Thailand Myanmar Sri-Lanka South Korea Bangladesh Pakistan Indonesia India The Philippines Japan

25 Taiwan New Zealand China Hong Kong Singapore Australia

Political Unrest Natural Disasters Contagious Disease/ Pandemic Property Theft

Terrorism Information Theft Medical Emergencies Robbery/Assault

0 Vietnam Macau

Malaysia

In this section of the survey, respondents were asked to indicate which specic threat to travelers was most prevalent in each
country.

Countries have been ordered to show correlations in country risk rating for Political Unrest, Terrorism, Natural Disaster and
Information Theft. These 4 key correlations are shown more clearly on the following two pages 9
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4.2 Threats to Travelers (type)

Political Unrest

100 75 50 25 0 Thailand Myanmar Sri-Lanka South Korea Bangladesh

Political Unrest Natural Disasters Contagious Disease/ Pandemic Property Theft

Terrorism Information Theft Medical Emergencies Robbery/Assault

The chart on the previous page has been broken down into four specic charts. They are taken from the same data, and are graphed in the same format. Political Unrest, Terrorism, and the ve countries with the highest correlation to those threats are represented.
100 75 50 25 0

Terrorism

Pakistan

Indonesia

India

The Philippines

Sri-Lanka

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4.2 Threats to Travelers (type)

Natural Disasters
100

75

50

25

0 Japan Taiwan New Zealand Indonesia Bangladesh

Natural Disasters Terrorism Information Theft Property Theft

Political Unrest Contagious Disease/ Pandemic Medical Emergencies Robbery/Assault

Information Theft

The charts on this page represent the relative correlated data sets for Natural Disasters and Information Theft.
100

75

50

25

0 China Hong Kong Singapore Australia Vietnam

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5.0 Travel Security Management Tools

0 GPS Location Tracking Self Help Tools EmployeeCentral Reporting System (external) EmployeeCentral Reporting System (internal) Employee Awareness Training (on-line) Support to Staff on Personal Travel SMS Broadcasts Employee Awareness Training (face to face) Executive Protection Programs Hotel Security Assessments and Restrictions Air Travel Assessments and Restrictions Travel Portal on Intranet Emergency Response/Evacuation Provider Government Advisories Travel Tracking Tools Medical Response Provider E-Mail Alerts Country Risk Assessments 25 50 75 100

In Use and Will Continue Under Consideration

Plan to Introduce Will Not Use

Despite the fact that Government advisories rank low in merit in the formulation of country risk assessments, they are still heavily
used in travel risk managements programs.

Self Help Tools via smart phone applications are under consideration by 40% of the eld. GPS Location Tracking is reportedly the least used tool presented with 50% of respondents stating they will not use it. There is a
lack of correlation between the Pharmaceutical/Bioscience/Chemical sector and this gure. 80% of respondents from this industry reported that they will not implement GPS location tracking. There were no other signicant correlations or deviations. 12
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6.0 Hotels
56

In-House Hotel Assessment Frequency

60 45 39 33 24 11 1 Year 11 2 Years 26 30 15 0 3 Years

High Risk (% of respondents)

Medium Risk (% of respondents)

Never

Merit of Sources in Hotel Assessment

6 5.04 4.38 3.87 4.09 3.79 In house security team 2.91 Audit Program Formal Peer Collaboration Service Provider Assessment Hotel Security Program 5 4 3 2 Informal Peer Discussion

75% of respondents reported conducting their own hotel assessments. Hotel assessments that are done in-house are conducted on average every two years. There is signicantly less emphasis put on hotels in medium risk environments. Respondents were asked to rate the merit of each type of assessment listed in the second graph on a scale of 1 to 6. While an in-house assessment remains the most trusted form, there is some merit given to formal peer collaborations such as ACSG or OSAC.
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6.1 Hotels
Hotel Policies in Place

0 Open to Commercial Selection/ Assessment Subject to In House Assessment Restricted 5-star Use Subject to Commercial Requirements No Iconic Hotels No 5-Star Hotels Local Hotel Chains Only Apartments Only 3.0 3.0 10.4

10

20

30 37.3 29.9 26.9 23.9

40

22.4

Survey participants were asked to identify which of the the above policies were currently being enforced for hotel selection at their company. There were no correlations found between any two hotel policies being enforced. Respondents who reported restricting use of both Iconic and 5-star hotels did not have any other policies in place.

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7.0 Country Risk Assessments

Number of Vendors Used Respondent Use Percentages

3% 11%

5%

16%

100.0

80.0

16% 20%

60.0

40.0

20.0

30%
Percentage of Respondents

ISOS CWT Intelligent Risk

H&A AMEX Others*

IJet World Cue

ASI HRG

*Others includes providers such as: AEGIS, AGI, AKE Limited, Anvil, Exclusive Analysis, Global Edge Group, Internal Resource, International Risk, KPMG, NC4, Pinkerton, PSA, Stirling Assynt, Stratfor, Transecur, TRiPS, and Unity Resource Group.

Respondents were asked to indicate which of the surveyed vendors they use for risk assessments.

From this data, it was calculated how many vendors each respondent uses in total. Vendors listed in the Others category were included. 84% of respondents use at least two different vendors for country risk assessments. 68% of respondents use at least three different vendors for country risk assessments. Of the respondents who reported only using one vendor, 80% reported using either International SOS, or Hill & Associates. International SOS is by far the most widely used vendor assessment. This could be attributed to the fact that many companies have a medical contract with ISOS and package in the risk report. 15
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7.1 Country Risk Assessments

Merit of Information Sources in Country Risk Assessments

5.00 4.42 4 3.89 3.6 3.51 3.35 3.29 2.50 3.75

1.25

0 Region 1

On the Ground Assessments Informal Intelligence Sources Vendor Assessments

ACSG Formal Government Sources

Sister Company Discussions Alternate Security Groups

On the ground assessments are considered the best source of information when formulating the risk portfolio of a country. Despite being rated as the lowest in merit when contributing to the overall country risk assessment, vendor assessments were used by all respondents to the same degree.

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8.0 Program Challenges

2.00 Hotel Assessment Quality Travel Agency Relationships Medical Provider Quality Information Provider Quality Government Advisories Program Challenges Average Headcount Restrictions Budget Restrictions Geographical Footprint Demonstrating Effectiveness Time to Conduct Assessments Senior Management Support Staff Adherence 2.75 3.25 3.49 3.63 3.66 3.68 4 4.11 4.26 4.26 4.27 4.30 4.48 4.66 3.50 4.25 5.00

For the purposes of this graph, the scale has been altered to make the deviations for each challenge easier to see. Survey participants were asked to rate on a scale of 1-5 the effect each of the listed challenges had on their travel
security program.

There was a loose correlation found between Hotel Assessment Quality, and Information Provider Quality. This could
be due to the fact that respondents rely on the same service provider for both. No other correlations were found. 17
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9.0 Background
Respondent Industry Breakdown

There were a total of 70 respondents that participated in the survey.

3% 11% 30%

Of those 70 respondents, 68 completed the survey in full. The two that did not
only completed the two questions pertaining to country risk ratings and types. 68 respondents were used in all calculations for the remainder of the report.

14% 3% 14% 9%
Banking/Financial Services IT/Telecommunications/Technology Pharmaceutical/Bioscience/Chemical Service Indutsry Government Related or NGO Manufacturing/ Light Industry Petrochemical/Mining/Heavy Industry/Tobacco Transportation/Logistics

16%

The ACSG Travel Risk Management survey was developed by Kenneth Hanson. Kenneth participated in an exchange program at the Chinese University of Hong Kong located in Shatin, Hong Kong. The Program places students from the University of Massachusetts into CUHK for up to one year. While attending The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Kenneth undertook a part time internship program at HSBC under the Regional Head of Physical Security Mark Hargraves. He was assigned the task of developing a survey for the Asia Crisis and Security Group pertaining to travel risk management. In preparation for writing the survey, Kenneth conducted 11 interviews with regional heads of security in different industry sectors. The purpose of these interviews was to gain background knowledge of the topic, and to look for areas of interest which would then be the topics of focus in the survey. The survey was created and distributed using an online survey tool called Zoomerang. After drafting the survey, it was distributed to 164 members of ACSG for completion. The resulting data and analysis yielded this report. For more information on the survey and results, please contact Kenneth at kenneth_hanson@student.uml.edu. 18
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9.0 Background
ABOUT THE ASIA CRISIS AND SECURITY GROUP: The Asia Crisis and Security Group (ACSG) is a network of corporate security, crisis and continuity management professionals with primary responsibilities in the Asia-Pacic region. The Group facilitates cooperation, information sharing and best practices amongst professionals across the region for the benet of the members and their organizations The Group was formed in early 2005 in direct response to the Asia Tsunami of December 26th 2004. As a result of working together in response to the Tsunami the founding ACSG members recognized the value of growing cooperation and information sharing amongst corporate security professionals in Asia-Pacic The ACSG Steering Committee undertakes projects on behalf of the membership that are intended to serve the best interests of the membership As of October 30th 2010, the ACSG had 350 individual members representing 150 organizations operating in the Asia- Pacic. These organizations are primarily MNCs but also include NGOs and a limited number of representatives from Government agencies whose membership benets the objectives of both the ACSG and their own organizations ACSG is a non- prot organization registered in Hong Kong in 2006 under the Societies Ordinance More information is available at www.acsgroup.org, or via admin@acsgroup.org

COPYRIGHT NOTICE This report is published by the Asia Crisis and Security Group (ACSG) and remains the property of the ACSG The report may not be reproduced (save for the circumstances below) in any form, nor in any publication without the express consent of ACSG The report may be used openly by the recipients of the report from ACSG, ACSG members, and within their organizations.

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