The Safe-Behind-the-Hotel-Walls Strategy

Another failure of the conventional wisdom about traveling in a time of terrorism is telling business people to choose hotels based on the range of their facilities. In the past, for example, it did make sense to advise business travelers to take their meals and libations in in-house restaurants and bars. Not anymore. Recent attacks in places as diverse as laid-back Bali and frenetic Mumbai have focused on food, beverage, and nightlife outlets frequented by an international clientele.

A more practical approach today is to suggest business travelers adopt a more paranoid and hermitic lifestyle: Book rooms in a hotel that offers accommodations on special-access floors (usually called concierge, club, or executive levels). The restricted access provides a small additional layer of security. Then avoid a hotel's public spaces and shopping and dining outlets whenever possible. Boring as it sounds, take your meals from room service or dine in the facilities offered on the special-access floors.

One other thought: Terrorists most often (but not always) attack a hotel's facade because it is easiest to access even if the property is within a walled compound. So you might improve your security by asking for rooms in the back of a hotel building.

The Beware-of-Terrorist Strategy

Talking-head experts understandably spill lots of ink and electrons advising travelers to protect themselves against potential terrorist violence and warlike attacks from political or paramilitary groups. That focus is understandable, of course, but largely misguided. As frightening and dangerous as terrorism is, more international business travelers fall victim to garden-variety street crimes.

The experts often forget to remind on-the-road businesspeople to take basic anticrime precautions: Travel with as little cash as possible; keep a low profile; avoid hailing taxis on the street; and dress inconspicuously with little or no bling. And remember Rule No. 1 of hotels: Never hang the "make up my room" tag on the doorknob. It's an obvious tip-off that the room is empty and ripe for rifling.

The problem with all of these words? They're only conditionally reliable and will, inevitably, be contradicted by the next (and inevitable) attack on a hotel or resort. And we won't even have seen it coming.

The Fine Print …

One bit of advice that still holds up in these troubled times: You can never have enough information. Traditional U.S. print and broadcast media have by and large withdrawn from covering world news in any comprehensive ways. One decent (and free) replacement for at least a cursory view of everything from the state of street crime to antistate insurgencies is the daily Hotspots newsletter from the ASI Group. It's a depressing laundry list of everything that's going wrong with the world on a destination-by-destination basis.