ITIC Global 2025 | How technology is impacting travel risk management

The ITIJ team are reporting from ITIC Global in Venice this week (2–6 November 2025), sharing the discussions that take place at the conference. Read all reports
 

Bex Deadman, Co-Founder of Travel Risk Academy and Founder of 8 Phase Consulting

First, we need to understand what travellers are doing, and what they are facing when they travel, said Deadman. There are four huge industries (travel, security, insurance, and assistance) that come together when people travel, whether they are business or leisure travellers. In order to understand how these interact with each other and with travellers, the audience were asked to share how they travelled to Venice, which highlighted the different risks they faced during the travel, and how they booked their travel. “Think about the organisations you booked with, and how many different ones were involved – including the data that they now hold on you,” said Deadman. During the conversation, it was highlighted how long the chain of organisations was that suddenly held personal information on the traveller.

Moving on to the topic of travel risk management (TRM), Deadman asked the audience how many people got a TRM notification about Venice – and, of those who did, who actually read it? Who downloaded a travel security app provided by their company?

Travel-related apps was the next discussion – how many apps do we have that help us travel? The winner in the room had 120, while one person had just one! Everyone had multiple devices, yet only one encrypted. Everyone had connected to Wi-Fi. So how careful are we being with our data?

“Traveller data is a huge wave of information,” said Deadman. “Your data is moving with you, but it was already there before you arrived as well. After you have left, it stays. How much information is out there, and how much more could we achieve if we were able to harness this data?”

Bruce McIndoe, President, McIndoe Risk Advisory

Artificial intelligence (AI), said McIndoe, was positioned to suck in the data.

He began by describing how, just a few years ago, radio frequency identification (RFID) tags came out, and when they first came about, from a government intelligence point of view, that data was easy to obtain just with an antenna. Now, technology has evolved to encrypt that data. As gaps in new technology are identified, new solutions need to be found.

“As companies are experimenting with AI-enabled everything,” said McIndoe, “they are taking that data in and loading it into an AI environment, so you have no control over how that company is using your data going forward.” Data governance is therefore becoming harder to manage.

When people travel, this “tree” of information dissemination reaches further. All the data is out there. “Where are we going to be in the next decade?” McIndoe asked. “Spray and pray – spray the data out there, and pray it stays safe.”

AI from organisations like Google is collecting all the data on you and when it comes to travel planning, agentic AI will go out and gather the information that you could need and deliver it to you in such a way that you can choose your preferred options. Then, once you’ve made your decision, the agentic AI will send your details to your airline or hotel, etc, and make the booking for you, agent to agent.

The fragmented data that we currently give to the universe is going to accumulate, said McIndoe. And, in an ideal world, it will belong to the individual. Companies we interact with will only be given the small parts that they need. “But,” McIndoe warned, “that is not what is going to happen. Companies want your data too much – they will offer incentives to people to get that information: loyalty points, price reductions, etc. Preferential relationships will build between companies and users.

“Insurers are going to have unbelievable underwriting data that we do not currently have access to,” said McIndoe. “Everyone’s travel information will be so available that insurers will be able to track their travellers and exactly what they are doing and where they are going. Having the contextual information means that insurers can price and underwrite that policy for each trip and each person uniquely.”

Deadman and McIndoe concluded by highlighting that AI was going to be a game-changer for travellers – so how is our industry going to respond to their needs? It is time to think differently about how people are going to travel and what insurance and assistance industries can do to protect their travellers. AI is going to force collaboration, so even though everyone in ITIC is in different sectors, working together is the only way that travellers are going to be properly protected.