The recent media articles about the kidnapping and killing of Americans Kidnapped in Matamoros, and travel security warnings issued from other sources, such as the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), have once again focused attention on the risks that travelers may encounter. These and other reports have again brought the issue of travel security to the fore.
Denver, Colorado, and Florida-based IMG GlobalSecur Inc. (https://www.globalsecur.com), a leading international travel security and consulting firm, has developed a defined list of personal and executive protection measures that need consideration before and during overseas travel. This information, derived from various police and government sources over many years, is still relevant to today’s civilian travel environment. It has proven essential to protect world-renowned dignitaries, senior corporate officials, company employees, and travelers in general.
Several decades of security experience have reinforced the belief that when travelers learn and utilize basic proactive and preventive actions, their exposure to overseas risk will diminish.
This blog and others will suggest ways of becoming safer when traveling based on proven actions that eventually will become routine and second nature. Some of these essential practices will initially need to be ‘self-driven. They will require the traveler to consider, implement, and practice preventive behavior that meets their security needs. However, when practiced routinely, these measures will quickly become internalized and require minimal thought or effort.
The suggested measures, primarily proactive, will emphasize self-protection – in military jargon, “the actions necessary to put off the day when something bad happens” since “action at the scene” is the least preferable option.
A primary and proactive necessity, in general, and more specifically in the travel mode, is to improve security awareness, i.e., the ongoing need to notice and be aware of the things happening around you. Not doing so can facilitate or aid and abet an unforeseen attack.
Several personal protection steps must become second nature to achieve this objective, especially when traveling. Travelers cannot do anything to reduce overall crime, so the goal of this approach is always to “transfer the threat elsewhere” and to put “distance” between you and any merging or actual threat.
Upcoming blogs will explore these basic techniques, allowing travelers to become more aware and other personal protection steps that will help them remain secure in almost any environment.
Please get in touch with me directly if you have immediate questions regarding secure future travel or any other security or personal protection topic.
IMG GlobalSecur, Inc.
Christopher Hagon is a former police superintendent with London’s Metropolitan Police. and a personal protection officer to senior members of Britain’s Royal Family. Other past assignments include Director of Corporate Security for Miami-based Ryder System. In 1995, Hagon co-founded Incident Management Group, Inc., a consultancy that provides a wide spectrum of proactive and response services to corporate America. The company’s focus includes security program development, supply chain security consulting, forensic psychological services, emergency response, crisis management and worldwide travel security for organizations and individuals using our GlobalSecur® and FoneTrac® Travel Safety Programs.