If the current U.S. travel warning system has always left you feeling a little confused-just what is the difference between a travel alert and travel advisory-the State Department feels your pain.
To help alleviate that confusion, the Bureau of Consular Affair, a division of the U.S. Department of State, announced on Friday that it will be introducing a new four-level warning system in January.
"The Department of State is improving our communications with U.S. citizen travelers to provide clear, timely, and reliable safety and security information worldwide," said Carl C. Risch, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Consular Affairs at a public briefing. "Over the past year, the Bureau of Consular Affairs gathered feedback from stakeholders across the country and the world to, number one, improve access to the information; and number two, redefine our products. These changes will help ensure a consistent worldwide standard."
The new system, instead of categorizing each nation by travel advisory or travel alert, will issue a travel advisory for every country in the world. Each advisory will then be classified into one of four categories.
For a country set at level one, the advisory will encourage travelers to "exercise normal precautions" while for those at level two, Americans will be advised to "exercise increased caution." For countries classified at level three, travelers should "reconsider travel;" and for those at level four, the warning will be "do not travel."
The new program, according to Risch, has been in the works for more than a year, "even before the change in administration." He also said the new levels would not be driven by politics.
"It's driven by our commitment to making sure that Americans who are traveling overseas are informed travelers and have access to up-to-date information," he said.
Among the factors that contribute to a nation's advisory level could be risks of terrorism, civil unrest, health considerations or natural disasters. Limited-time events, such as elections, sporting events and other incidents that "may pose safety risks" would also be factored in.
"That's something that the State Department would work collaboratively on with the Bureau of Consular Affairs."
While the new system is expected to roll out on or around January 10, at this point more questions than answers exist.
Worldwide Caution
Among the questions asked at the briefing, reporters wanted to know how the new system would mesh with a worldwide travel alert, as was recently issued by the State Department after President Trump declared Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel.
Assistant Secretary Risch: "Well, that's under the current system. The new system it wouldn't look that-look like that."
Reporter: "So there would be no more Worldwide Cautions then?"
Assistant Secretary Risch: Right. It wouldn't be called that anymore.
Reporter: Well, would it be-what if you wanted to not-what if you wanted to do something that affected-for every country on the planet?
Assistant Secretary Risch: We will call it an alert, as I understand.
Later in the briefing, a reporter returned to the issue with a request for more details.
Reporter: Could you explain a little bit more about-you said there's not going to be any more Worldwide Cautions. If there's an event like the killing of Usama bin Ladin or-how would the word get-how does the alert system mesh with this new system?
Assistant Secretary Risch: It would be very similar to that. It's just that here, instead of having some countries not having any information, every country will have a travel advisory so that we'll be able to discuss the situation in every country.
Reporter: Wait. So, if there's some-wait, okay, sorry. If something necessitates there being an alert for everywhere in the world, you would then just update every single country's advisory, or you would put out one thing?
Assistant Secretary Risch: I believe that we send out one thing, the alert.
State Department Staff: And so we haven't made a final-I think at times we may use the Worldwide Caution, so we haven't set a definitive, like "We're never going to use this," because if we need it, we will-if we need to put out something for-
State Department Staff: It's-we haven't decided that we're completely doing away with it, but we haven't decided that we're going to for sure keep it. It's-if it's needed, there will be a Worldwide Caution, and if not, we won't have it.
Do Travel Warnings Work?
When Risch was pressed to answer if he believed travel warnings actually work, he responded, "I don't know that statistically."
"I can say as a consumer, I as a traveler in my private life, I've always referred to these resources and used the STEP program, and relied on this guidance," he said "So I hope that others certainly do the same. It's very useful and we want it to be even more useful in time."
To read the entire transcript from the briefing, visit the briefing overview at the Department of State website.
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