Travel Risk Management
Pre-trip intelligence for executive travel risk, real-time monitoring for high-risk travel security, and clear decision triggers for team travel. Online deliverables. Clear actions. No theater.
Human-led travel threat intelligence by Zika Rakita (Zika Risk). Built from real-world route-level thinking, not generic travel tips.
This is not bodyguarding.
This is intel + monitoring + a plan that tells you exactly when to move, pause, reroute, or abort.
Who This Is For
Use this if any of these are true:
- Your executive(s) travel for business, visibility, negotiations, or site visits
- You are sending teams into unfamiliar, unstable, or high-crime environments
- You want route and destination decisions based on signal, not headlines
- You have deadlines, meetings, and fixed schedules, and you still need safety
- You need an escalation protocol that works at 2 AM, not a PDF nobody reads
Blunt reality: Most travel incidents are not "bad luck." They are predictable patterns with ignored early indicators.
What You Get
You receive decision-ready travel threat intelligence, delivered online:
- Destination and route risk assessment (written deliverable)
- Hotel/venue and movement considerations (OSINT-based)
- Monitoring during travel with actionable escalation alerts
- Emergency playbook with decision triggers
- Comms plan and check-in protocol
- Post-trip debrief: what changed, what to adjust next time
You are buying clarity under pressure.
What This Replaces
Generic travel risk management does not look like this:
- Corporate travel "risk assessments" that ignore routes and time windows
- Hotel recommendations with no context about surrounding area or incident patterns
- Alerts with no thresholds, decision rules, or escalation logic
- Plans that don't say when to abort or what triggers a hard move
The 3-Phase Model
Phase 1: Pre-trip assessment (before you travel)
Goal: Eliminate avoidable risk, reduce exposure, and make movement decisions in advance.
Deliverables:
- Threat overview: crime, unrest, surveillance posture, and kidnapping patterns
- Neighborhood and movement risk notes: where problems concentrate and when
- Route logic, not just 'avoid areas': airport-to-hotel, hotel-to-meetings, backup routes
- Venue/hotel risk flags: location context, access patterns, surrounding environment, crowd dynamics
- Behavior guidance: what draws attention, what reduces it
- Decision triggers: what conditions require a change
What this is not: A generic country report. It is tied to your itinerary, timing, and exposure profile.
Phase 2: Real-time travel monitoring (during travel)
Goal: Track what moves, filter noise, and push only what matters.
Monitoring includes:
- Unrest/protest movement that impacts routes, airports, districts, and venues
- Crime spikes, targeted scams, and emerging threats to foreigners
- Local security disruptions: roadblocks, transport strikes, major incidents
- Event-driven risk: elections, court rulings, political anniversaries, demonstrations
- Situational shifts: curfews, sudden enforcement changes, checkpoint activity where relevant
Monitoring window is scoped to your travel dates and key movement periods.
How alerts work:
No spam. No firehose.
If something changes that affects safety or movement, you get: context, likelihood, impact, and recommended action.
If it does not change your plan, it does not hit your phone.
Comms plan (simple and usable):
- Check-in cadence: normal ops vs elevated risk
- One primary, one backup channel
- Escalation ladder: who is called first, second, third
- "If no contact" protocol: what happens if check-ins are missed
Phase 3: Post-trip debrief (after travel)
Goal: Turn what happened into a stronger posture next time.
Debrief includes:
- What worked and what created exposure
- What changed on the ground vs pre-trip assumptions
- Lessons learned for future travel: same region or similar risk profile
- Retainer recommendation if travel frequency or exposure requires continuous monitoring
If you travel quarterly or manage rotating teams, one-off assessments become outdated fast. That is when a retainer makes sense.
Threat Scenarios We Plan For
This service is built around realistic scenarios, not paranoia:
- Kidnapping risk: opportunistic vs targeted, patterns, and what increases likelihood
- Surveillance and hostile surveillance: early indicators, behavioral cues, and what to do next
- Protests and civil unrest: route disruption, crowd volatility, rapid escalation triggers
- Targeted crime: robbery patterns, vehicle-based threats, location-based traps
- Corruption and enforcement friction: common traveler failure points, how to reduce exposure
- Online spillover into physical world: doxx risk, location leakage, digital footprint mistakes
Key point: None of these are rare. They happen weekly in high-risk cities. The difference between you and the victims is preparation and timing.
Route and Hotel Assessment Examples
Route examples:
- Airport arrival options and timing risk
- Primary route vs low-profile route vs hard abort route
- "Do not stop" zones and common trap points
- Meeting-to-meeting movement logic: minimize predictability
Hotel/venue examples (OSINT-based context):
- Location risk: what surrounds the property
- Access risk: choke points, crowding, predictability
- Visibility risk: lobbies, entrances, public exposure
- Practical adjustments: arrival behavior, vehicle handling, meeting setup
Regional note: For travel to the Balkans (Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro), assessment includes native-language sources and cultural context that automated tools miss. This is a core differentiator.
I do not claim physical site inspections unless explicitly contracted and feasible. This service is primarily online intelligence and decision support.
Emergency Plan and Decision Triggers
- Trigger list: what conditions require action
- Action menu: what to do for each trigger
- Role assignments: who decides, who communicates, who moves logistics
- Evac/relocation options: soft move vs hard abort
- Incident documentation checklist: for legal, HR, insurance, or internal reporting
Example decision triggers:
- Protest reaches X distance from hotel/venue
- Roadblocks appear on primary route
- Direct threats or fixation indicators emerge online
- Confirmed targeting of foreigners in your area
- Local incident shifts policing posture or mobility
Case Study (Redacted)
Travel disruption avoided with early reroute decision
Situation
Executive team scheduled for meetings in a city experiencing rising unrest and opportunistic targeting of foreigners.
Findings
- Event-driven unrest indicators trending toward the meeting district
- High-probability route disruption window identified
- Social signals indicated elevated targeting behavior near transport hubs
Actions
- Adjusted arrival timing and changed movement routes
- Implemented check-in protocol and escalation ladder
- Issued "move/hold/abort" triggers for the team
Outcome
- Team avoided route entrapment and district volatility
- Meetings completed without incident
- Client shifted to repeat-trip monitoring for future travel
- Zero legal or HR incident documentation required (clean trip)
Key takeaway: The win was not bravado. The win was timing and decisions.
Engagement Options
This is typically delivered as:
- Per-trip engagement (best for one-off or occasional travel)
- Frequent traveler monitoring (for quarterly travel or rotating teams)
- Integrated into an Intelligence Retainer when travel exposure is persistent
Pricing
Per-trip Travel Risk Management: $997 per trip
Includes pre-trip assessment + monitoring window + emergency playbook + post-trip debrief.
Retainer option for frequent travelers:
If you travel quarterly (or manage multiple travelers), monitoring should be continuous. Retainer pricing depends on travel volume, regions, and number of principals.
Scope note: You get a clear quote after a short scoping call. No surprises.
Cost comparison: A single travel incident (kidnapping, robbery, medical evacuation, legal incident) can cost $50K–$500K+ in hard costs, plus reputational damage, lost productivity, and internal investigations.
This service is incident prevention, not overhead.
What I Need From You
- Destination(s), dates, and purpose of travel (high-level is fine)
- Traveler profile(s): executive/team, visibility, known issues
- Itinerary structure: arrivals, meetings, movement windows (even if rough)
- Known constraints: must-attend meetings, fixed venues, hard deadlines
- Any prior incidents, threats, or special concerns
Good inputs create good intelligence. If you have gaps, I'll flag them and adjust scope.
Boundaries
- No fear-selling, no exaggeration
- No illegal access or intrusion, OSINT only
- No automated alert spam
- If travel is low-risk, I will tell you
- If escalation to legal or law enforcement is appropriate, I will say it clearly
FAQ
Travel is not risky because it is foreign. It is risky because decisions get rushed.
Request a Trip Risk Assessment. I'll tell you what matters, what doesn't, and what to change before you land.
Response: within 24 hours on weekdays (urgent cases: write \"URGENT\").
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