NB: This is a guest article by Stuart Lodge, director at RoundTheWorldFlights.
Interesting developments in the world of the official travel advice on the internet issued by governments.
Following industry discussion just a month ago on Tnooz, it looks like the UK government’s Foreign Office is testing a new “Traffic Light” system for travel advice.
It works pretty well for a country that shouldn’t really be visited, such as Yemen. Highlighted in red: “Avoid all travel to whole country”.
Also works well with countries such as Vietnam, with: “No restrictions in this travel advice”.
However the tricky bit comes when the advice is between those extremes. For example, this is Iraq’s advice: “Avoid all but essential travel to part(s) of the country.”
But here’s the rub – this is Thailand, which has two highlighted sections. It kind of looks more dangerous, at a glance, than Iraq…
As the FCO Travel Advice Team admitted on the original Tnooz article:
“Consistency across the whole travel advice piece is a challenge”.
However, TravelFish founder Stuart McDonald makes this good point:
“Highlighting the two ‘avoid all..’ options is extremely misleading, especially considering the vast majority of the country is fine.”
If nothing else, it does show how difficult a new, more efficient, and generally more informative travel advice system, is going to be to design.
This author has previously favoured the Lodge Scale™.
A star system – with email alerts/tweets when they change
At the moment the system used to advise travellers is a blunt weapon. Go, don’t go or go under advisement. I realise that this weapon is very much used as a political tool. But surely a more subtle, effective and pro-active system is a star system.
Perhaps where 0 = Stockholm and 10 = Timbuktu.
Think about the effect of ratcheting up the numbers. There could be tweets when the stars change plus auto email alerts (a system you have at the moment). I could imagine that a change in a country’s status might make front page news locally. You could call this the Lodge Scale™. After me.
However the FCO should be given credit for trying something different.
Maybe an increase in the size of boxes might help. Or an explanation as to what they mean. At the moment it does seem quite, well, confused. Can’t help thinking that a usability study or some A/B multi-variate testing is called for.
At the very least maybe the boxes should be a lot bigger, clean up the colours and only have one box highlighted at any one time.
What do you think?
NB: This is a guest article by Stuart Lodge, director at RoundTheWorldFlights.
About Special Nodes
Thanks for sharing this Stuart.
I don’t want any travel advice or any advice from a government. Do some people…probably. Is it the best place to be looking for this sort of advice? No.
As discussed in the previous thread, there are heaps of other places to find this info, probably more reliable.
Happy New year Y’all!
@sean – why would you ignore travel advice from a government?
Hi Sean
Yeah problem being that travellers can be affected by government advice, albeit it indirectly, through the (re)actions of the travel insurance companies. Still I think the FCO should be applauded for at least trying to change. Never easy.
Stu
All very interesting – good one, Stuart. Trouble is, advice on a country-wide basis is too blunt to be useful, and in some ways this traffic-light system compounds the problem. (Red = I’m going to book elsewhere…) The FCO might as well put the US into “Avoid all travel to parts of country” because of the dangers to tourists in parts of South Florida.
I’m wondering if a more visual approach to the traffic-light idea mightn’t be better – a thumbnail map of the country in question, with green/yellow/red areas highlighted. Then pop-ups and explanatory text can expand on what the specific dangers are in specific areas. That would erase the Iraq/Thailand confusion – and would also help places like Iraqi Kurdistan (which has no restrictions, but you wouldn’t guess that from the current traffic lights) to develop a tourist industry, while very obviously steering tourists away from the Thai-Cambodia border.
Cheers Matthew. Very good point about Iraqi Kurdistan. It is difficult for the FCO and I do have sympathy. But at the moment we have a system that has evolved rather than designed.
The problem is that evolution, from the best possible intentions, has left us with a clump of advice in chronological order, rather than regional or what the pros want – the really important advice for travellers or tourists ie wear a helmet when on a scooter, avoid drugs, take a malaria tablet that affects thousands of people every year.
I actually think the data is all there, it just needs better formatting and prioritising. A map, per country, is a great idea. I know every Government department is cutting back, and I know the Travel Advice Unit is only a fraction of what the FCO actually do, but the stark facts are the UK Treasury takes ÂŁ2.3 billion a year in APD, and they could spend a few quid on a better database/maps/improving usability. Doesn’t need to be flash. Just needs to works.
Is there some kind of API for this information available? I’m looking for the Care Plus Travelpharmacy app to include both vaccination and travel safety information. This should be added for the http://www.careplus.eu/en/care-plus-travelpharmacy/index.php web-version and the iPhone/ iPad app