According to research conducted by the International School of Ethics and Safety, as many as eight out of ten Italians do not take precautions before traveling to travel safely. A complaint resulting from a survey conducted in collaboration with tour operator security operators.
In fact, only two out of ten Italians leave a trace of the trip they intend to do, set their smartphones with the emergency numbers and with the contact of the diplomatic mission of the destination they intend to reach or provide alternative communication systems (such as social networks, for example) in the event that access to telephone lines is lost.
For many years, institutional bodies such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the Farnesina Crisis Unit have been distributing information material and providing behavioral codes to be used during those emergency situations that may occur during travel.
Unfortunately, however, media attention and people’s interest tend to focus on a particular event, such as a catastrophe, an earthquake, a flood or a terrorist episode. Business travelers and companies that send their employees overseas are also often not very security conscious. In fact, it seems that only a very low percentage of the 30 thousand Italian companies working abroad know and apply the regulations on the safety of employees abroad.
“When we organize a trip, we automatically inquire about mandatory vaccines, pack suitable clothing and get supplies of medicines, to be ready to overcome small difficulties, but we think very little about the risks connected to environmental, terrorist or related phenomena. local crime ” , explains Professor Paola Guerra, founder and director of the International School of Ethics and Security . “Not paying attention to these facts is probably a psychological defense: it does not depend on the fact that we do not know the actual risks, but on believing that those risks will never directly affect us. An attack of gastroenteritis is taken into account but not to be one of the Bataclan’s guests ” .
In those situations, everyone’s spontaneous reaction is to cancel the trips already planned or to postpone any travel. But once the fear of the moment has waned, we forget to organize travel in total safety.
