Safety in uncharted territories is a top priority for Executive Protection Companies with top-tier clients embarking on overseas travel.
Get the hang of essential strategies and tactics your Executive Protection Agent should be prepping you to undertake before an out-of-the-country trip.
Worry about staying alive first; then worry about how you are going to live.
As a high-value individual in today’s ever-dangerous climate, the fact that you must protect yourself at all times from hazards, especially on the road, at sea, or in the air, definitely doesn’t go over your head.
That’s why you hire an Executive Protection Company – to tie up loose ends in your security details and offer the best protection for you and your family at all times, including when you travel.
But how do you know what to expect from your Agent before you travel? How can you successfully judge that you’re getting your money’s worth before you place your life in their hands while you’re on the road? That there is what you’re about to pick up.
So before you think of bailing on us just so you can catch that early flight or attend that meeting, here are ten concise things you should expect to be prepared for by your Executive Protection Agent before you travel:
Threat Assessment
Prime security plans are mainly built on one principal foundation: Information.
Your Executive Protection Agent will discuss a planned threat assessment on the risk level of your trip with you. Think of it as an introductory preview of any expected crises during your travel, especially emergencies they’ll need to think through swiftly to protect you from any danger.
To get that threat assessment up and running, your Executive Protection Agent should be prepped with pre-trip intelligence; this includes overall travel intel and threat information for the country, region, and city you’ll be traveling to.
Conveyance
If you’re traveling by road, your Executive Protection Agent should also prepare you to secure your travel itinerary – car hires, drivers, the whole nine yards when it comes to how you’ll travel. Your Agent would inform you about the need to hire cars, particularly bulletproof enhanced automobiles that can help protect you from unforeseen violent attacks.
Your Agent will also inform you to hire reputable drivers from reputable companies. You need protection, so you definitely cannot be at the wheel for various reasons, especially different driving habits to contend with if you’re traveling by road, and high accident rates, especially in car accident-prone regions.
Your Agent will also prepare you to have varying drivers on hand so your trip route information stays secured.
Keeping a Low Profile
You’re a high-value individual, so when you attend meetings of any sort, you want to look your best, all swagged out with a Gucci suit and donned with an AP or a Richard Mille because you believe that how you dress is how you get addressed. That’s very agreeable.
But, looking the VIP part all the time makes you an easy target for criminals in your destination country. So, your Executive Protection Agent should be preparing you to dial it down during your travel so you can limit the possibilities of becoming a target for onlookers abroad.
The goal here is not to have you dress poorly, far from it. It’s to have you presented in a way that limits the number of threats to your safety. The lesser the threats are to your safety, the more secure you’ll feel and be.
If needed, your Executive Protection Agent should prepare you to know when to go gray-man, blending into the crowd for safety purposes.
Dropping Dangerous Habits
Some bad habits need to be ditched during overseas trips. Say, for instance, you consume a lot of alcohol, smoke too many cigarettes, or gamble; your Executive Protection Agent will most likely inform you of the need to cut down on those habits or ditch them altogether.
You’d most likely be traveling for business purposes as a VIP, and an excessive show of habits that are not only hazardous to your health but also the strategies put in place by your Executive Protection team will be more than detrimental.
In cases where emergencies occur, and you need to be protected, you’d definitely prefer being sober, healthy enough, or ever-ready to take any necessary actions required by your Agent for your safety.
In ensuring your safety and security while traveling, you need two people: your Agent and yourself on guard at all times.
Avoiding Routine Movements
This pro tip can be a lifesaver, especially when your trip’s bound to take an extended period. As humans, we have an innate trait of forming routine habits – waking up early, exercising, taking naps, having a good breakfast, and, more importantly, the routes we take to wherever we’re headed.
For instance, you may love taking a particular route when you jog or have a Starbucks spot where you get a favorite cappuccino fix. Making routine movements can decrypt your next move to spies and simplify the process it takes before criminals can successfully attack you or your family.
This potential threat is why your Executive Protection Agent should prepare you to switch things up as much as possible.
Cybersecurity
Your Executive Protection Agent will naturally prepare you to protect your devices from cyberattacks and data breaches when you embark on your overseas trip.
Say, for instance, you’re traveling with connected devices like smartphones, laptops, and tablets, you won’t be protected by your home or office’s network security, and you’ll have to depend on hotel and conference center Wi-Fi, which aren’t always safe.
So, your Agent should be preparing you to take some cybersecurity steps that can help protect you and information about your location while traveling – these include password-locking your devices, enabling two-factor or multi-factor authentication, encrypting your data, turning off Wi-Fi or Bluetooth auto connect, etc.
Hotel Lodging Precautions
There are specific steps that your Executive Protection Agent should prepare you to take before, during, and after your stay at a hotel.
For starters, the Agent will ideally inform you that you shouldn’t book your hotel room in your actual name to prevent snooping. Instead, you can book the hotel in the agent’s name or a fictitious name.
Your Agent would also notify you of “Halls and Walls” which means sweeping the environment where you intend to stay to uncover threats like microphone bugs, spy cameras, and the likes.
Furthermore, the Agent will prepare you for any emergency exits in case a pre-planned attack occurs.
Adhering to Laws and Regulations
In the same way you and your Agent have to follow the rules and regulations applicable at home, your Agent should be preparing you to pay special attention to the laws of the location you are traveling to.
What are the requirements for your Agent as your protector? If your Agent is armed, how will they be transporting their firearms, and what are the local licenses required to carry their firearm overseas? Do you and your Agent also have all the documents needed for travel?
Device Visibility – Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Your EP agent will naturally prepare you on where to put your devices while embarking on the trip. Say, for instance, you place your iPad in the overhead bin while on a plane; that will protect your device from being jacked during a plane hijack or robbery.
Keeping your devices from theft or destruction will also prevent them from being ghosted (the threat of collecting all sensitive data from your iPhone, for example, just by placing another iPhone next to it).
Scheduled Call-ins
The Executive Protection Agent will also require you to have scheduled call-in sessions with the guys back at the office so they can regularly confirm if the trip has been a seamless experience or if there’s been some hitch or attack.
The frequency of these call-ins will be determined by the risk level in the destination country assessed by the Agent.
These are some measures a good Executive Protection Agent should prepare you for before traveling abroad. Now, if you’re looking for not just a good but the best Agent(s) (we’re talking top-tier here) to handle your security during overseas travels, look no further.
At Security Pro, we handle the preliminaries for you – research, due diligence, and communication. We’re in the business of connecting you with the best security professionals across various fields – Executive Protection in particular.
So quit worrying about how to be sure you’re getting your money’s worth; book a free consultation with us today or contact us. We’re ever-ready to show you why we’re your best option for getting the security services you want for the protection of your welfare.