Introduction
If like most, you base your overall www.ehmtic2014.com of a country or city based on some-kind of threat rating then you need to read this article before blindly basing all your business decisions upon such tools.
This article will address the development and reporting of security or travel safety threats and how they are communicated. Specifically, the collection of data, affected audience demographics, aggregated indicators, qualifiers and the real threats revealed.
By the end of this article you will have immediate knowledge that can be applied to your current risk analysis methods, tools and services to ensure a more accurate and relevant approach for your business needs.
Data
True analysis is based upon and supported by demonstrable facts. While a derived assessment may be a combination of multiple factors, the baseline factors remain constant.
These facts must be relevant to the business and the affected assets and not a standardized collection of threat topics representing the mean average of the world’s problems.
This data must also be reported in support of the final threat/risk analysis. Rarely do end users ever see or are offered these facts but they provide greater insight into the effectiveness of the final number or score and often highlight weaknesses with the assessment process. Possibly the reason they are rarely released.
Data such as accidents per capita, delays per route, illnesses per demographics, victims of localized crime, total loss per event and time loss per disruption are all key requirements to any travel threat spectrum.
The data alone is insufficient unless related directly to the audience in which the analysis is created for or those directly affected. Local inhabitants and their risk categories are seldom shared by that of travellers, expats and other visitors to a location.
Audience
If your intention or requirement is to present an accurate index of threats or risks for travellers, then your data must show an index or scale as to how/how much they are affected.
While these groups may have further diversify, it must exclusively show the threat and impact as it relates to that demographic and that demographic alone, in all sectors.
High cholesterol may be a national issue but will it have any great affect on travellers to that location? Hotel incidents may not make local newspapers but have a significant impact upon travellers and visitors to the area. Terrorism kills thousands of people every year but only a handful of travellers are ever affected, often indirectly. The Mumbai attack was far less successful than many other terrorist attacks in the country but because so many foreigners were affected, it had a far greater audience and “news worthiness” to the event.
Natural disasters have a much greater impact on local residents but the loss or disruption to airports, roads, accommodation and public utilities affects everyone, with the potential for greater threat to visitors and travellers.