Following his talk on travel risk management and the new ISO31030 during the “TTG Travel Experience” in Rimini on October 14, Pyramid Temi Group’s Chief Executive Officer Roger Warwick participated at the “Travel Security Management: the new ISO31030” held in Milan on Friday 15 October.

In Rimini, during the roundtable moderated by Rosemarie Caglia of Travel for Business, Warwick presented participants from the travel management sector an overview of changes to the current travel risk management situation and briefed them on the structure and implications of the recently published ISO31030 Travel Risk Management standard.

The high level of interest in the standard’s guidelines is an indicator of how seriously the travel management sector is taking the issue of travel risk, a level of interest that has been accentuated by the difficulties posed by the Covid pandemic and the resulting changes to security and stability in a number of travel destinations.

During the ‘Travel Security Management: the new ISO31030’ organised by Analytica in Milan, Warwick delivered an overview of the ISO 31030 Travel Risk Management standard before the conference opened to a series of discussion topics that ranged from risk analysis to leadership challenges.

Among the many interesting and valid themes that emerged during the conference were the differences in risk perception at local level, the issue of diversification in the travel risk management sector, and the requirement to expect the unexpected.

Under the expert guidance of the conference moderator Matteo Tassoni (Head of Regional Security ABB), talks were delivered by Salvatore Distefano (Head of Group Security Coesia), Corrado Miralli (Corporate Security Manager Saipem), and Enrico Regiroli (Associate Director at Control Risks).

Of particular note were the observations made by Salvatore Distefano who underlined the difficulties in forecasting potential high impact events such as the bomb attacks against four commuter trains in Madrid in March 2004 and the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, two examples of events that were impossible to predict.

Salvatore used these examples to illustrate the importance of tracking employee locations, an option that a number of technological solutions allow companies to do in a seamless fashion today.

Corrado Miralli also underlined the progress made over the past 20 years both in terms of experience and lessons learned as well as advances in technological support.

Miralli also underlined the importance of soft skills and how a firm understanding of some basic principles made the Security Manager’s role more efficient.

Enrico Regiroli of the Control Risks Group illustrated some of the basic principles of risk analysis and expressed his views on how climate change will impact travel risk management considerations.

In his closing remarks, Warwick reminded those present that while ISO31030 is an instrument that can be adopted in the larger organisations, the standard is primarily addressed at assisting those small and medium sized enterprises that wish to improve existing strategies or are addressing travel risk management procedures for the first time.

Overall a successful event in which qualified and experienced speakers focused on a number of the real issues that organisations with an international footprint have to take into consideration.

Thanks go to the organisers Analytica and Andrea Piovan of SAP for putting together a highly interesting and successful event.