Why posting selfies on social media during work trips is unsafe

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A new survey titled International Travel Management Study 2018 has warned about the impact of 'Insta-bragging', i.e. revealing one's location using social media, on business trips - a trend adopted by about two-thirds of corporate travellers.

Conducted by 2hm on behalf of AirPlus International,  the survey found out of 2,180 global respondents, 13% post on-trip picture or location updates during business trips "often", while 34% do it "sometimes" and 19% post "rarely".

The dangers of Insta-bragging were listed as follows:

• Risk of commercial espionage: Commercial competitors can derive important insights. For example, they might work out which customer prospects a rival’s traveler is visiting.
• Risk of burglary: Burglars track social media to learn when properties are unoccupied, because the owners are travelling.
• Risk of kidnap: Travellers can be a target for kidnappers, both for financial extortion and terrorism purposes, with documented examples of kidnappers tracking via social media.

The solution evidently doesn't lie in blanket banning of travellers from posting - instead, it is about finding the right policy for social media usage, built through careful co-operation between relevant company stakeholders. This includes travel and mobility managers, security departments, HR, and the travelers themselves.

Among the other notable findings from the report are:

• Travel managers increasingly expect their companies to book more trips. Those anticipating more travel are up for a second year running, to 35%.
• Out of the 24 countries in the study, India has the most travel managers (77%) and business travelers (70%) forecasting increased travel.
• Travel managers are worried about rising costs, with 41% expecting air travel spend and 36% expecting hotel spend to go up.
• Higher spenders are more worried than medium and low spenders about rising trip costs. Higher spenders also make less use of low-cost carriers.

Lead photo / 123RF Graphic / AirPlusInternational