Travel firms must ‘tailor’ responses to Middle East challenges

The crisis in the Middle East has defied conventional crisis-and-response planning and thrown up a series of challenges requiring travel businesses to “tailor” their responses.

 

That is according to Abta director for industry affairs Susan Deer who heads the association’s destination, crisis planning and crisis response teams.

 

Deer told an Abta Travel Law Seminar in London on Tuesday: “It’s more than two months since the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran and from the very first hour the industry was thrust into an operational challenge that has continued ever since.”

 

She argued: “We’ve not seen a neat progression through a crisis lifecycle. It has been a lot more episodic, with a temporary cessation and then a resumption, so a lot more challenging.”

 

Deer said: “The initial priority was to get accurate information and disseminate it to members and other stakeholders in an environment of fast-breaking media [reports].

 

“In March, we saw a regional escalation – Iranian missile and drone attacks across the region and blanket travel advisories and re-routing of flights often by thousands of miles.

 

“Members initially focused on repatriation – thousands of people were returned safely. As March continued, the challenges with long-haul customers travelling through Gulf hubs came to the fore.”

 

Deer noted: “There were lots of questions around whether transit passengers were excluded from Foreign Office advice against all but essential travel. No, they’re not. They face the same risks, in the view of the Foreign Office.”

 

She added: “On April 7 we had a ceasefire, which was extended but with intermittent flare ups.

 

“Coming into May, questions around jet fuel are getting a lot of attention. The message from the government and airlines is it is not currently an issue.”

 

Deer told the seminar: “Businesses have been managing amendments on an ongoing basis. The impact is not the same in every business – it depends on the business, the customers it has, the suppliers it works with. Your response needs to be tailored.”

 

She said: “We’ve moved from the immediate crisis response phase, but we’re far from a steady state where we know what is going to happen. We’ve moved into something more complex and challenging. Demand is returning, operations are resuming, but there is continuing risk.

 

“Foreign Office advice is still against all but essential travel. We remain engaged with the Foreign Office, feeding in your views. [But] there is no indication of a change to that in the immediate future.”

 

Asked if the Foreign Office might clarify its advice for passengers transiting via the Gulf, Deer said Abta had “made strong representations” on that. But she warned against seeking clarification on what constitutes essential travel, saying: “We should be careful what we wish for.”

 

She acknowledged: “It leaves us with a grey area. What a customer thinks is essential may not match what you or your insurer thinks is essential.”

 

Deer said: “We continue to follow a non-traditional crisis path, [and] I don’t have the answers.

You should all be focused on what is appropriate for your business, managing the balance between risks and responsibilities.”