Travel Risk in 2025: It’s Getting Personal

Cast your minds back to a time when business‑travel advice was little more than a colour‑coded map and a tidy list of “dos and don’ts.” Those days are gone.

The world is moving again – faster than before the pandemic – and today’s travellers are not anonymous employees headed to a pin on a map. They are individuals with intersecting identities, unique expectations, and very real vulnerabilities.

This shift demands that we change the fundamental question. Outside of extreme situations, no longer do we ask, “Is Mexico City safe to travel to?” Instead, we ask, “How will this traveller experience Mexico City, given their medical history, cultural background, or any number of personal factors?”

By moving from place‑centric thinking to a people‑first mindset, risk assessments evolve into living profiles that adapt in real time based off the profile. Guidance becomes dynamic, arriving exactly when it matters, whilst privacy is elevated from a compliance tick‑box to a moral imperative.

Consider what happens when we enrich a traveller’s profile – voluntarily, and always under their control – with up-to-date profile attributes, from language fluency to mobility constraints. A powerful risk-intelligence engine can then align raw, real-time data with personal relevance, transforming generic alerts into guidance that feels timely, empathetic, and, above all, useful. Yet none of this works unless trust sits at the core.

A privacy‑first architecture minimises data collection, encrypts what is stored, and gives the traveller full authority over when and how their information is activated. Safeguarding identity traits must become as routine as safeguarding a passport number.

What does this look like on the ground? Let’s think like the people we want to support. Opening an app and seeing a narrative that speaks to you as an individual, perhaps etiquette during Ramadan for a first-time traveller in the Gulf, or a heads‑up on local insulin availability for someone managing diabetes. Practical options could also appear, like the choice to attend a meeting remotely, an alternate routing through a lower‑threat transit hub, or the contact details of a vetted local guide who speaks your native language, or security-recommended restaurants post-meeting, whilst you wait during a delay? No one is forced to reveal private details, but those who opt in unlock an unprecedented layer of protection and confidence.

As we look ahead, this shift towards personalised, real-time support doesn’t just reflect a technological evolution – it aligns with the rising expectations of the next generation of business travellers. Millennials and Gen Z have already shaped consumer experiences with their demand for relevance, autonomy, and digital convenience. But it’s the emerging cohort of professionals – those coming into leadership in the next five to ten years – who will redefine what good looks like in corporate travel.

They will expect services that anticipate their needs before they arise. For them, hyper-personalised travel risk management won’t be a premium feature; it will be an expected part of the value proposition. This generation won’t just value safety – they’ll expect it to be smart, contextual, and adaptive to their lifestyles, work styles, and identities. The leap from personalisation as a marketing tactic to personalisation as a duty of care will become the new benchmark for progressive employers and security providers alike.

Where is the frontier? It lies in the partnership between human and machine. Predictive analytics already correlate flight delays, social‑media sentiment, and healthcare capacity in near real time. Algorithms will not be replacing aspects of human judgment, but they can augment our insight, handing us the right information at precisely the right moment. Together, they form a co‑pilot (no pun intended) model in which machines crunch vast, fast‑moving data and humans deliver context, empathy, and final judgment.

Our future conversations around travel or crisis, especially when aiming to engage teams across our businesses in a meaningful way, need to be one that centres people, respects their privacy, and empowers everyone to explore the world on equal footing.