Our Commitment to Safety & Security
We ensure our trips evaluate and reduce risk to our guests, to what we deem to be an acceptable level. This includes building strong trusted local networks, to help us keep regularly informed on developing situations and amending, changing or cancelling routes if we believe there to be a change to the risk level.
We also are in regular contact with NGOs in the countries we operate and keep across local media to ensure we are aware of any changes to the security situation. In some cases, such as Mogadishu, this also includes travelling with an armed guard.
We take sensible precautions when it comes to accommodation choices and do not publish these online, think carefully about our transport methods, travel routes and group sizes. We stay nimble and do not hesitate to change a plan if we believe the risk level has changed.
Special safety considerations
When organising a large event, such as the Marathon of Afghanistan or the Somaliland Marathon, there are particular safety considerations which had to be taken into account and there were extensive risk assessments completed.
We had extensive meetings with government officials ahead of the race, carefully planned the location of the route, ensured the route wasn’t released to the public before race day – for safety reasons, ensured water was supplied, had medical teams on hand in case of injury or accident, along with many other considerations.
UN staff took part in the races, along with the ambassadors to European nations, international tourists and many Afghans & Somalis.
We regularly work with TV presenters, journalists, film crews, photographers and high profile social media creators. These projects include working with the legendary Michael Palin in Iraq, Belgium TV presenter Tom Waes in Pakistan and the internationally acclaimed singer, Joss Stone, who sung in every country in the world.
These unique projects involve in depth risk assessments and naturally attract more attention, as they may involve cameras or film crews. We have to ensure all the paperwork is in order for filming, the locations we take professionals to have a risk level which we deem acceptable, carefully plan our routes, ensure no sensitive sites are filmed, along with many other factors – to help make these projects a success.
These trips throw up unique challenges, which we need to overcome and consider, compared to our normal tourist trips.