As leisure travel rebounds post-pandemic, travellers have become more aware of the risks they may face abroad – and are turning to assistance and travel risk management firms for guidance. Traditionally, those flying abroad for business have received more support, but as new tools, services, and strategies have developed, the risk support gap between business and leisure is beginning to narrow.

“Traditionally, business travellers have access to a level of intelligence, risk management, and tracking support that wasn’t available to the average leisure traveller,” said Paul Trotter, Security and Intelligence Lead at World Travel Protection.

However, he added that, for his company at least, this gap is beginning to close: “We’ve partnered with a number of leisure insurers to give individual travellers who want to proactively manage their own travel risk access to our technology before and during travel, which historically has only been available to business travellers and high-net-worth individuals.”

This includes things like access to real-time alerts, intelligence support, and up-to-date country information, as well as information about potential disruptions such as adverse weather or major sporting events.

Carolyn Pearson, Founder and CEO of Maiden Voyage, added that while her company was originally set up to support business travellers, “we have seen an increase in enquiries from both concerned parents of gap-year children and mid-lifers, often divorcees who are travelling solo for the first time in decades.”

Fortunately, she said, many subjects that are typically taught to business travellers – safe ground transport, hotel safety, preparing to travel safely, and destination-specific research – are directly transferable to leisure travellers.

Growing awareness of risk – but also natural optimism

Robert Gallagher, President of the US Travel Insurance Association (USTIA), reported that “while awareness has grown … particularly after the pandemic, many leisure travellers continue to underestimate the range of risks they might encounter abroad”.

Additionally, travellers’ awareness may be patchy at best, with inconsistent knowledge of different potential dangers.

“They may be familiar with obvious concerns like severe weather or political unrest, but are less likely to consider issues such as limited access to medical care, the cost of emergency evacuation, or local infrastructure challenges,” he explained, adding that “without targeted pre-travel guidance, these risks often remain abstract until travellers are directly impacted”.

Vered Lobel, CEO of OneBefore, said that many leisure travellers were “more aware of political risks than they might have been in the past, due to increased accessibility of news coverage”.

Despite this, she warned that people tend, as a rule, to be “naturally optimistic about their own health”, and “expect that they should be able to travel with no issues”. This, she explained, was often not the case: “There is always a risk associated with travel, which is very much influenced by pre-existing medical conditions, prior experience, age, and a number of other factors.”

While online searches can frequently return pages of information on protests in a specific country, there is often a lack of depth in respect to the underlying issues, or the scale, scope, and impact of them

Trotter argued that the landscape of travel preparation was “conflicted”, with many travellers “more aware than ever of the types of risks that are present in many overseas destinations, but less prepared than ever to deal with them”.

He noted that while online searches can frequently return pages of information on protests in a specific country, there is often a lack of depth in respect to the underlying issues, or the scale, scope, and impact of them. This, in combination with the “ever-increasing politicisation of information, and spread of mis- and disinformation”, leaves plenty of room for travellers to be uninformed about their destination.

To counter this, Trotter recommended that travellers seek out “vetted information and intelligence” to ensure that they correctly understand the risk environment, and can make informed decisions.

However, Pearson highlighted that, for many first-time and inexperienced travellers, they and those around them may assume that they know more about travel than they do – “such as how to navigate an airport, connecting to devices overseas, or how local transportation systems work – but this is not always the case”.

“There is also the ‘bleisure travel’ crossover too, where employees might tag a few days of leisure travel onto a trip. They are unlikely to even consider the fact that their bungee jump or shark dive activities are not covered in their travel insurance premiums,” she said.

Rising demand for travel risk services

Lobel also reported that there had been “growing demand” for more information from travellers ahead of trips – something she said her company had seen “across the board” – but especially among people with pre-existing conditions, or who are on a waiting list for a diagnosis or treatment.

“These travellers want clarity on what cover is in place for their conditions – whether diagnosed or not,” she said, predicting that “as [medical] waiting lists continue to grow, so too will the size of this cohort of travellers”.

Trotter explained that ever since the Covid-19 pandemic, he has seen a heightened level of reactivity from travellers towards major incidents, leading to higher demand from the leisure sector for travel risk management.

“When major events occur – from extreme weather to mass protest movements,” he said, “many leisure travellers wish to immediately return home – likely due to the not-so-distant memory of closed borders and airline shutdowns.”

These travellers want clarity on what cover is in place for their conditions – whether diagnosed or not

By contrast, he said, there was a “marked disconnect” among business travellers: “Those travellers who are aware of their destination and receive real-time alerts … are often much more willing to remain in country, and report feeling less affected or concerned by any event.”

Trotter concluded that, ultimately, most travellers are “not seeking information during a crisis” but rather “decision-making support”.

“For some, that is someone to tell them whether they should stay or go. For many others, it is instead looking for someone to guide them to making their own decision and to regain agency,” he explained. “This is common in major events where both traditional and social media may be telling them conflicting information, or the traveller is otherwise overwhelmed by the volume of information.”

Pearson agreed, stating that, often, travel briefings and other preparation were “more about confidence building and empowering individuals to travel whilst opening their eyes to what could go wrong”.

However, she warned that it was a mistake to view leisure travellers as identical to their business counterparts. She noted: “The way that leisure travellers travel is by nature different to how those individuals might travel on business. They may be inclined to use less homogenous accommodation, have less structure to their days, participate in riskier activities, and head to more remote locations.”

Beyond this, she said, specifics that relate to leisure travel include “staying in shared rooms or hostel accommodation, spotting predatory behaviours, striking a balance between going off-piste and keeping in touch, and drink spiking”.

Engagement and cost

For Lobel, the key barrier to ensuring that leisure travellers are sufficiently prepared is not the availability of informational material – it is getting them to engage with it.

To give it the best chance of being read, she said, “it is important you make the briefing as accessible and jargon-free as possible for policyholders, and ensure that they are shared in good time”. This is especially vital due to the “trend of people buying last-minute trips, meaning that there can be a real crunch to deliver them ahead of departure time”.

Trotter noted that, while currently he did not feel it was “cost-effective or feasible” to deliver bespoke or personalised pre-travel briefings for leisure travellers, there are a range of resources available that can offer support.

Those offering travel risk advice should aim to communicate through multiple means, including email, SMS, and push notifications

“There are training videos and educational content that can enable travellers to be more prepared for popular destinations,” he said. “Similarly, the availability of curated content such as country information found in [World Travel Protection’s] Travel Assist app enables travellers to identify major risks that are relevant to them and to conduct a self-assessment.”

This model, he said, was already utilised by many business travellers, with formal pre-travel briefings only delivered by a professional when specific aspects of the planned trip had increased to a higher risk.

Additionally, when it comes to delivering information to leisure travellers, Trotter noted that the “best channels … will largely depend on the specific demographics”. He noted that some travellers may prefer email notifications, while others – particularly those who are older – may be wary of SMS messages due to fears of being scammed.

Trotter added that the preferred method may also change depending on the traveller’s location – those who have limited phone data will prefer different methods of communication from those in places where data is readily available.

He recommended that those offering travel risk advice should aim to communicate through multiple means, including email, SMS, and push notifications.

Pearson added that her team had “worked with a number of insurers to develop safety and wellbeing content, including briefings, animations, and videos, all designed to deliver engaging, actionable advice”. She added that, with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), she believes that “there is now the opportunity to personalise this content at scale”.

Making informed decisions

Lobel argued that, ultimately, “prevention is always better than a cure” when it comes to helping travellers navigate the risks of foreign travel.

Despite this, pre-travel briefings can never replace the need for proper support in an emergency, she explained: “If they have an emergency contact on speed dial, claim costs can be reduced by providing the right care as quickly as possible. Equally, if you can improve buyer awareness of what is not covered by their policy, then you can drive down the number of claims you have to decline.”

Gallagher added that the potential impact of pre-travel briefings could have a significant impact on the number of assistance costs and travel claims experienced by firms each year, as well as helping travellers “make informed decisions in the moment”.

“While travel will always carry some unpredictability, combining sound planning with the right protection creates a stronger safety net for everyone involved,” he continued. “Travellers who take time before departure to understand the risks of their destination, and how their travel insurance policy addresses those risks, are better positioned to respond effectively to disruptions.”