EBI on the WYSETC Travel Safety Panel

ISO standard

Oct 22, 2018 | ISO standard, Risk Management, Travel Safety, Youth Travel

The World Youth, Student and Educational Travel Confederation (WYSETC) is a global organization that represents and promotes the interests of international youth and student travel to governments, educational institutions and the general public. Because of WYSETC’s purpose and reach, the team here at EBI Group felt it important that we should be a part of this organisation. Our values and beliefs of a global perspective out of which the youth and students of the world can learn understanding of the interconnectedness of this planet align strongly with the aims and philosophy of WYSETC.

Therefore, we are pleased to announce that we have been accepted as members of WYSETC as of the annual meeting held in Edinburgh in September 2018. A core part of our business is helping organisations mitigate the risk their customers face when they are travelling. Risk has become a big issue for many organisations as the 24-hour news cycle magnifies fear and trepidation among parents and teachers. It is gratifying that the young of this world remain generally fearless. However, to ensure best preparedness for its members, WYSETC set up a Travel Safety Panel to address the concerns of its members about the tumultuous world around them.

It was therefore very satisfying for our team that we have been invited onto the panel because of our core knowledge in risk mitigation and management, as well as risk surveys. Joël Marier from our team will represent EBI Group on the panel. We have a long-term vision of building an ISO standard for managing risk in youth travel on organized school trips as no such standard presently exists. Because of our years of experience in the youth travel sector, we are working with the Canadian government in the ambitious and lengthy process to establish an ISO standard for the youth travel sector. But the maxim, “every journey starts with the first step” seems highly appropriate in this context.

Our participation in WYSETC and especially our role as a member of the Travel Safety Panel, takes us, we believe, from the first step to the first milestone. This action brings together EBI’s expertise in business development, change management, and organizational restructuring for the youth tourism community.

Oct 22, 2018 No Comments

The Dangers of NOT doing a Proper Risk assessment

Risk Management

Aug 13, 2018 | Risk Management, Youth Travel

Nicholas Mills was a teacher at C.W. Jeffreys Collegiate Institute in Toronto. Mr. Mills was responsible for coordinating a week-long school trip from the institute to Algonquin Provincial Park, some 200 km north of Toronto, in 2017. During the group’s stay in the the park one of the students, 15-year-old Jeremiah Perry, drowned.

Under the rules of the Toronto District School Board, mandatory swim tests were required prior to the departure of the group. An initial swimming test for the students took place but 15 of the 32 students who went on the trip did not pass the test. Mr. Perry was one of those who had not passed this test. Sadly, Mr. Perry drowned on the trip.

Subsequent to the accident, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) conducted a thorough investigation, including over 100 interviews, according to Constable Catherine Yarmel, a spokesperson for the OPP. As a result of their investigation, they have charged Mr. Mills, the 54-year-old teacher, with criminal negligence causing death. Mr. Mills was responsible for designing the trip itinerary as well as the overall supervision of the outing. He was the designated team leader for Mr. Perry’s group.

Following the charge against Mr. Mills, Toronto School Board spokesperson Ryan Bird, said, “Our safety requirements last summer we believe were sufficient and had they been followed, a number of people that did go on this trip, would not have gone because obviously as we made clear last summer, a number of them did not pass the swim test which should have made them ineligible to go on the trip in the first place.”

Mr. Perry’s death is tragic, and we offer our condolences to his family and loved ones. Nothing can bring him back, but we can work even harder to prevent future tragedies. We cannot assess or determine motivations or steps by the teacher, the Toronto School Board, or the police from a few news articles and online coverage. But what the EBI Group team is conscious of is that every day during the average school year, hundreds if not thousands of school groups go out on adventure trips. These trips are seen as important experiential learning modules that support classroom-based learning. Most frequently, these trips are organised by a given teacher for a specific class. Whilst most School Boards have standard safety protocols (as exemplified in the above case), how frequently a given teacher ignores, or is unaware of, or is not properly prepared with these protocols becomes an issue. This issue becomes even more serious if the principal of the school signs off on the trip without actually knowing how carefully the teacher has followed the protocols.

The situation here involves a school group, but such incidents can occur with travel agencies, tour operators, scout or sports group and others around the world. The EBI Risk Assessment tool is designed to give principals and other group overseers greater confidence that all risk factors relating to the planned trip are reviewed and assessed prior to the departure of the group. EBI offers the service either as either a self-serve model or we can do it for an organisation for a modest fee. No risk assessment system is absolutely 100% fail-safe but what the tragic case in Toronto illustrates is that a risk assessment system independent of school or government protocols can provide a stronger measure of flagging risks that could and should be avoided. This is what the EBI Group system does.

Aug 13, 2018 No Comments

Desert flood disaster in Israel – lessons to be learnt

Risk Management

Jun 13, 2018 | Risk Management, Youth Travel

The Israeli desert area – the “Negev” covers almost half of the whole country’s area. Each year tens of thousands of school trips take place in this area, which also poses several known potential major climatic and terrain risks:

sudden unexpected floods,
sinkholes (deep unseen covered holes in the ground) and the possibility of dehydration and getting sun stroke, especially during the summer when the temperature can reach 40c degrees and more.

All these are well known and therefore, prior permission to embark on organized trips is normally required. The Israeli Ministry of Education also operates a “situation room” in which approvals and supervision of school trips in real time are provided – each year around 160,000 such approvals are granted and without one, no school can embark on a field trip.

Unfortunately, last month, at the end of April 2018, 10 post school graduates, travelling with their post secondary educational body, got trapped in sudden unexpected floods and lost their lives in very tragic circumstances. The mechanism of the trip’s control was not properly utilized. On that day the Israeli Ministry of Education had cancelled around 90 requests from schools to travel in the desert, due to flood alerts. Unfortunately, this post graduate boarding school was not obliged by law to get such a permit, and someone there, took a horribly wrong decision.

9 of the 10 travelers were females (physical strength can play some part in it). The floods which started suddenly in the afternoon, caught these students by surprise in a narrow high walled valley creek where despite a good route and hanging aids, it was really hard to pull oneself up when the forceful flood came rushing in. When trucks and buses are carried away like light toothpicks, one can imagine that getting out safely would be a tricky task for any defenseless hiker.

This tragic event has shocked the nation and was declared a national disaster. The organizers of this trip are now facing criminal charges of gross negligence and man slaughter – they are likely to spend years in prison.
This story teaches us, school trip organizers and operators, several important lessons:

It is better not to defy the mighty forces of nature and ignore public weather alerts. Better to postpone a trip than to bury friends and colleagues later.
Never set out on such an adventurous trip without having situation room approvals and tracking (where such exist), even if it is not required by the local state law.
There should be some clear written guidelines or procedures guiding the educational team on how to behave if potential risks are detected or communicated to organizers.
Lastly, students should follow their instincts. If one has an uncomfortable feeling before setting out on some risky trip or activity, do not yield to social pressure or shyness and express your concerns, even refuse to participate.

You can read more on this story in these links:

https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5242124,00.html
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Multiple-youth-feared-dead-in-southern-Israel-flash-floods-552823

For more advisory and technical guidance as to how to describe and prepare effective guidelines for mitigating and minimizing educational trips potential risks, contact EBI Group Inc.

Jun 13, 2018 No Comments

Changing To Survive

Consulting

Jun 4, 2018 | Consulting, Risk Management

The team at EBI Consulting was recently hired by an organisation who has been in the travel industry for more than 60 years. Starting as an outbound operator for youth travel in its European country, it became the dominant player in its sector for 40 years. But two things changed their situation. The first was the internet and the ability to buy tickets online. The second was deregulation of the airlines in Europe. These two factors necessitated a fundamental change in their business model. Today the organisation is an inbound operator focusing primarily on the provision of English language courses.

It should be noted that many of its larger international competitors no longer trade, all having gone bankrupt for a variety of reasons but at the heart of many them was the failure to adapt technologically to the marketplace as it changed. One of the key common mistakes they made was to try to solve their technological problems in house. Hiring or using their IT staff led to numerous mistakes and long delays even as the IT world around them roared ahead. The travel industry, by its very nature, is a people industry, not a tech industry. Technology is a productivity tool for the travel and tourism industry not an end in and of itself. Nonetheless it is quite amazing how many in the industry forget this fundamental distinction.

The organisation with which EBI was working had fallen into this trap. The IT team was a legacy team whose role was to build and maintain the IT infrastructure across the organisation’s businesses and sites. However, the team was not focused on social media whilst its competitors were. The consequence of this lack of attention to the new global reality in the travel industry was dwindling market share for its core youth and student demographics.

EBI has advised its client on the need for it to reorganize how its sales and marketing team as well as its IT team deal with Social Media. The issue is not the competence of the staff but how their time is allocated and how their role is changed by the dynamics of this interactive world. Although there are factors the organisation needed to address, it was, in our view, critical the organisation move into the 21^st century in terms of its interface in the technological world.

The team at EBI have had substantial experience in the change management of operations that technology, especially as it relates to digital marketing, brings to an organisation. Check out www.ebiconsulting.ca to find out more.

Jun 4, 2018 No Comments

Travelling youth groups in buses?

Risk Management

Feb 24, 2018 | Risk Management, Youth Travel

a nightmare could be looming here…

By Iddan Kroll, Quality Assurance Expert and Risk Analyst

Traveling with a (large) educational/school group on board a bus, especially in foreign countries, is a much riskier affair than what one could initially imagine.
To start with, buses could easily become a lethal death trap. In a severe accident or abrupt overturn, getting 60-80 persons out of a burning or crashed big metal cage quickly and hopefully unharmed is a much trickier task than could be initially anticipated.
Unlike in commercial flights, being ground borne and not air borne, makes humans feel very confident inside the bus. However, buses do not have designated “emergency exits” (normally only 2-3 narrow doors that the driver must open first); there are no designated sliders; there are no special safety instructions or pre-explanation given to passengers; no cabin crew to lend a helping hand. In some countries, buses even have windows shields which are covered in some metal bars – making the possibility of quickly smashing them and escaping through the window, literally impossible.
This possible nightmare became a horrific reality in one dramatic case in Italy.

The Italy – Verona Bus Crash

On 21/1/17 at least sixteen people were killed and about 40 injured after a bus carrying Hungarian students crashed and burst into flames on a highway in northern Italy. They were returning home from a ski vacation in the French Alps.

A likely problem with one of the bus tires caused the driver to lose control on the highway and crash at high speed in a self-inflicted accident. The coach crashed into a bridge pillar on the motorway near Verona at about 11pm on Friday. A fire on board ensued.

It is important to note that the results could have been even more tragic, had it not been for the Group’s physical education teacher, who came back to the burning bus and saved several kids from the flames.

This case demonstrates that bus accidents can happen anywhere, even in ultra modern buses on modern highways, caused by technical failures of the vehicle, a momentary loss of concentration, sudden fatigue, bad visibility – all could lead to tragic accidents.

Dealing with Risk Factors in Youth Travel

There are several major risk factors, organizers and group leaders, could try to contain or mitigate:

Demand the bus company to show all technical documentation needed to ensure that the bus’ routine maintenance and proper service/registration was done. You would need to know what to exactly ask from your transportation supplier/s, as technical issues tend to vary a lot between countries. Getting an ISO label or other quality approval from your transport supplier is a good start, but is not an automatic guarentee all is right with your particular vehicle.
Conduct visual checks at the time of embarking the bus is also necessary. For example, if the tires looks dodgy, the Organizer/Group Leader must demand for its immediate replacement.
Ensure the human factor is also covered well; no overworked, tired or reckless drivers should be allowed to drive Groups. If you feel this is the case, stop the driver and handle the situation.
Finally, proper conduct on boarding the bus is something that should be trained and supervised-brief your Group of students as to what will not be tolerated on the vehicle.
Groups should never distract drivers. Drivers need to stay focused only on their task.
Group Leaders/Teachers must be trained and be prepared to manage panic situations in case of an accident. Every second could counts in this case and every wrong move could be costly. Resourcefulness is always welcomed, but this is not something to count on in the longer run.

At EBI Group, we help Group Leaders and youth travel organizations to prepare and run a detailed check-up routine before any trip. Feel free to contact our specialists for more information on risk and crisis management travel with your Youth Group.

Feb 24, 2018 No Comments

EBI Group launches Risk Management Services for the Travel Industry

Consulting

Sep 19, 2017 | Consulting, Risk Management, Youth Travel

EBI Group has been providing consulting services for over 20 years with a specific focus on the youth and student sector. Over the past year, it has rapidly expanded both its reach, with new offices in the UK, Israel and Asia but also in its product offerings. We are now offering schools, travel agencies, and anyone who organises youth or student group trips an effective way of assessing their risk when travelling locally in their countries or abroad (an emerging channel of travelling), and how to mitigate that risk.

The Risks of Travel Today

EBI has spent the last year consulting with suppliers, with schools, teachers and other stakeholders, including the Canadian Standards Council, on the risks associated when youth and student groups travel abroad. Unfortunately, the random terror acts in Europe have brought the issue of group safety to the fore for many who are responsible for travel abroad. However, even domestically, all too often tragedy strikes because group organisers either willfully or not ignored the fundamental principles of risk mitigation. A 15 year old boy drowned here in Canada even though he should not have been swimming under the circumstances because he had not passed the required swimming test. These are preventable accidents. Whilst, random acts of terror are much harder to predict, there are some basic steps that can be taken to minimize potential exposure.

QUAYT

QUAYT – Quality Assurance for Youth Travel is the EBI solution. Why is QUAYT unique? We are the first organisation to offer a full quality assured way on to how to manage and mitigate Youth/Educational Group trips. Secondly, at the heart of our system are more than 150 unique Youth trips risks, or not so unique risks but which have different impacts on Youth groups in travel and hence makes them so special and hard to control/mitigate. Our long term goal is to develop an ISO standard but we are convinced that the system we are providing is the next best solution for those who are concerned about youth or student group travelling. Our website allows you to do a self assessment to see whether you are already managing your risk and how well you are managing it. We also show you a sample of what the QUAYT system is.
www.ebiconsulting.ca

So check out our new and improved website, www.ebiconsulting.ca, to find out what is happening with EBI. And pose these questions to yourself:

Do I know what are the risks when I send a group travelling?
Have I done everything I can do to help mitigate those risks?

Sep 19, 2017 No Comments

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