Ukraine Crisis Highlights the Need for a Plan
by Cheryl Rosen /For business travel to Ukraine, it’s the best of times or the worst of times. It all depends on a company’s motivation and appetite for risk.
For corporate agencies and travel management companies, the Ukraine crisis presents an opportunity to review customers’ travel risk management programs – and remind them how important it is to know where travelers are when things go wrong.
Speaking at a GBTA webinar titled, “Traveling in Times of Political Turmoil: Case Study: Russia and the Ukraine,” iJet COO John Rose noted that while some companies are pulling back from travel to the volatile region, others see opportunity in the shifting political alliances there and are stepping up their travel.
But whichever way your customers lean, a TMC’s role is to help them monitor the reality of what’s happening, track where their travelers are, and develop a contingency plan in case things get dangerous, said Rose, a member of GBTA’s risk committee.
Possible scenarios
While it’s unlikely that the U.S. will ban travel by Americans to the region, bans by other countries are not beyond the realm of possibility.
“Putin does not make false threats; it’s not unrealistic to think that Russia may put restrictions on inbound travel, especially from countries he is mad at, like the U.S.,” said Rose.
Companies and their TMCs need to have plans in place in case that happens. For instance, they might want to shift travel responsibilities from U.S. employees to staff members in other countries, like France or North Africa.
It’s also possible that Russian forces will take over parts of Ukraine, notably east of Crimea. Companies that have travelers there should have an evacuation plan and protocols worked out in advance to get everyone out quickly, advised Rose, whose company specializes in corporate security.
Assessing the situation
Most companies have a hard time evaluating the reality of political turmoil on their own, and often turn to their TMCs or travel agencies for help. Official government announcements are politically motivated and too slow to depend on, and news reports are exaggerated and unreliable, he said.
“Things right now are pretty tense because there are so many troops on the Ukrainian border.” But it’s impossible to tell if that’s “just Putin beating his chest or whether they will try to annex that along with Crimea, saying mostly Russians live here and we want to protect their interests,” he said.
It is possible that the Russians will cross the border, the Ukrainians will fight back, and NATO will step in. “That could happen, and part of your plan has to be that if it does, how do you adjust your business operations?”
Continuity planning
For corporate clients doing business globally, the travel team “absolutely needs to be part of any business continuity planning, and if not you need to escalate it up to whoever owns the plan in the company,” Rose said. “So often companies don’t think about the travel portion, about the exposure.”
Now is the time for TMCs to advise clients on whether to mandate that travelers get special approval before they head to areas at risk, and whether they need armed escorts.
Help them take a careful look at their risk exposure – how many people they have going to Russia and the Crimea, and to what end.
The point is not to say “no one should travel to Russia,” Rose emphasized, but rather to formulate a plan of what might happen and how to respond.
Indeed, he noted, iJet actually is seeing an uptick in travel to Ukraine as it moves away from Russia and closer to the rest of Europe. There’s risk, but there’s also business to be done.