A recent opinion poll on whether terror advisories altered one’s business itinerary revealed that 54 percent of the respondents went by their intuition and never fell prey to media hype or any such government notifications. The poll which was featured on LinkedIn, the largest business networking site with over 65mn members across the world saw merely 26 percent opting for safety first to diligently follow all travel advisories.
Mary Lascelles Relocation Director at Moving Links 4 You commented “My son recently went to Kashmir, India where he spent three months working on a project. So many folks advised against it as it was an unsafe place, and the newspapers certainly lead us to believe it was nuts for going. He has now returned and he said he never felt unsafe while there. Goes to show that a lot of times fear is instilled by media hype. Still, it’s important to use your intuition – while still living life and not shutting out important experiences.”
Barbara Holtzman, Executive Consultant & Management Coach said she would follow her intuition and did not avoid any place based on an alert alone, and also endorsed Lascelles’ view. While Sally Shiff Social Network Coordinator at Maoz Inc. opined “I live in the Middle East (Israel) and have learned to be aware of safety. What we don’t have here is the theft and harm that I used to see on the streets in the US or as a traveler abroad.” She later added that the places which were unsafe to travel were often found barricaded, and was glad rather to comply with such warnings.
However, some participants in the poll are of the opinion that it would be unwise to overlook these advisories. Similarly, those in the travel and transport industry are also found to be paying attention to the alerts as they feared it would hurt their businesses.
The poll clarification on as to why ask this question read – It is observed that advisories are used these days as foreign policy. Instead of pinpointing the terror strike areas, and helping those countries to nab the perpetrators before the event, most governments just release a terror alert to put that country/ies and administration/s in all kinds of trouble.
The recent terror advisories issued by the US, Britain, Australia and Canada on the Indian capital has forced the government to turn New Delhi into a fortress with heavy deployment of security forces and also increased security checks. Furthermore, some analysts believe operatives under the guise of crank callers could be involved in hoax calls (the recent series of anonymous calls about bombs being planted at various locations in New Delhi) to destabilize day to day business of the city.
It should be recalled that in February the Home Minister of India P Chidambaram had said about a US advisory then “I don’t think it was based on any new information nor do I think that it was intended to send any alarm signal. I think it was a routine advisory and it should be seen as such.”
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