A recent article in Forbes documented the trend towards luxury travel. More and more travelers want unique, personalized experiences. That might include a cooking class in Paris, France, or a remote trip to Borneo. So many intrepid travelers are attempting to scale Mount Everest that the New York Times reports there can be “traffic jams” on that mountain. It seems that no place on planet earth is too remote for the most intrepid travelers. Who doesn’t love travel? Who doesn’t love a unique experience somewhere on our great planet, whether it’s something that relates to human culture like a trip to Rome, or something that relates to nature like a trip to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia?
What’s another trend? The trend for corporate travelers to mix business with pleasure. You, as the HR manager, might prefer that your senior executives or senior employees go to their corporate meeting, do the meeting, and then scurry home from Europe to the USA without stopping for so much as a drink of water at the local bar. But that isn’t necessarily what will happen. 
They’ll be in Rome, Buenos Aires, or Moscow, and they’ll want to “take an excursion,” and not to somewhere safe and on the beaten track but somewhere not-so-safe and off the beaten track. They’ll be risk takers (that’s why they’re the corporate titans of industry, after all). But the problem is then if they have an incident, they’ll see you as responsible and come to you.
Setting Clear Boundaries for Corporate Travel when Business Blends into Personal
What is to be done? Well, first and foremost, set clear boundaries as to where corporate or business travel begins and where personal travel ends (and vice-versa). Secondarily, require that they use a travel safety app such as FoneTrac (conveniently available for both iPhone and Android), and that they post their itinerary back to the home office. Our GlobalSecur employee travel security service can help to keep them alert to security issues in the host country and, if necessary, send and receive push alerts. Thus real humans are there “in the background” to help them should they have a problem. You may not be able to ban personal travel, nor to require that people be totally safe but in the combination of FoneTrac with GlobalSecur you can mitigate your risks as an HR manager when your key executives, VIPs, or employees engage in “risky behavior” on their next combined business and personal trip.
