Because the Covid-19 pandemic continues garnering the lion’s share of consideration from enterprise journey managers and different key company threat administration leaders, these decisionmakers could also be affected by “Covid myopia,” inflicting them to neglect different vital threat elements, a brand new research cautions.
Worldwide SOS’s Threat Outlook 2021 report options outcomes from a survey of greater than 1,400 threat professionals in 99 international locations, together with practically 920 liable for their group’s vacationers. Performed between Sept. 22 and Oct. 19 by Ipsos MORI, the survey revealed a widespread sentiment that general workforce threat is at a five-year excessive and will proceed to extend in 2021.
Practically eight in 10 threat professionals canvassed believed the well being and safety threat for enterprise vacationers in 2020 elevated from 2019; amongst U.S. respondents, that proportion elevated to 91 p.c of respondents. In the meantime, about half of all respondents believed workforce threat would enhance additional in 2021 ,with that outlook particularly excessive amongst Asia-based respondents at 60 p.c. The worldwide perceived threat charge for enterprise journey was the best since 2016, when 72 p.c of survey respondents indicated threat threats had risen amid a spate of terror assaults all through Europe and North America.
However perceived threat from such safety threats and comparable occasions since has light considerably in opposition to the backdrop of the continuing Covid-19 pandemic, the research signifies. Amongst respondents who had been liable for enterprise vacationers, simply 30 p.c cited “geopolitical threats” as an space of concern, in contrast with 52 p.c in 2019. Charges of threat concern dropped equally yr over yr for “civil unrest” (to 25 p.c from 52 p.c) and “safety threats” (to 32 p.c from 68 p.c).
Whereas probably unsurprising given the devastating results Covid-19 has wrought on the worldwide company sector—together with bringing enterprise journey to a standstill for a lot of the yr—the dearth of consideration to these dangers is worrisome, based on Mike Sharp, group director for safety providers at Worldwide SOS.
The survey findings revealed “a doubtlessly business-threatening degree of Covid-19 myopia,” Sharp mentioned. Safety points even have been exacerbated by the pandemic, notably in relation to civil unrest and political protest, he added.
“It is comprehensible that, to various levels, the overall inhabitants and enterprise are extra targeted on software of Covid-related precautions. Nonetheless, perennial safety and security points haven’t abated,” Sharp mentioned, including that the pandemic has made it tougher to reply to these threats in lots of circumstances.
“Responding to high-impact threats, comparable to pure disasters ,has gained one other layer of complexity as a consequence of Covid-19 medical issues and fluid journey restrictions,” Sharp famous.
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