U.S. Department of State Improves Safety and Security Messaging for U.S. Citizens

 

The Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA) serves as the public face of the Department of State (DOS) and is responsible for the welfare and protection of U.S. citizens abroad, the issuance of passports and other documentation to citizens and nationals, and the protection of U.S. border security and the facilitation of legitimate travel to the U.S. The CA issues travel information in the form of safety and security messaging on their website,  travel.state.gov, for U.S. citizens traveling internationally. In December 2017, the CA re-designed this website, making it more mobile-friendly and easier to navigate, and made other product improvements as well. Travel administrators, risk professionals, individual travelers and others may benefit from familiarizing themselves with this new information to help inform their travel planning and decisions.

 

The DOS sought to improve their communications with U.S. citizen travelers to provide clear, timely, and reliable safety and security information worldwide. To do this, the CA gathered feedback from stakeholders around the world over the past year and identified three areas for improvement: 1) improve access to information on their website, 2) provide travelers a better idea of where the U.S. stands with regard to travel to a particular country at any given time, and 3) relay relevant travel safety information to the public in a more timely and efficient fashion. The goal was for these changes to help ensure a consistent worldwide standard.

 

Beginning this month, the CA launched new products with travel advisories being issued for every country in the world. Travel advisories follow a consistent format and use plain language to help U.S. citizens find and use important security information. Travel advisories give a description of risks, provide clear actions U.S. citizens should take to help ensure their safety, and apply up to four standard levels of advice:

The CA will issue an overall travel advisory level for a country, but levels of advice may vary for specific locations or areas within a country. For example, U.S. citizens may be advised to "Exercise Increased Caution" (Level 2) in a country, but to "Reconsider Travel" (Level 3) to a particular area within the country. For more information on travel advisories and alerts, visit the  LIVE! Improved Consular Safety and Security Messaging web page . To learn more about considerations for administrators and individual travelers, read On Call International's blog .  

 

In November 2017, the USA Study Abroad team hosted a webinar with the CA and Diplomatic Security specifically designed for the U.S. study abroad community. The free recorded webinar offers a preview of the changes to the CA's travel advisories and alerts system, which are now active and available. In the webinar, Jennifer Zimdahl Galt, principal deputy assistant secretary for the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the DOS, highlights two important resources: USA StudyAbroad, a "one-stop-shop" for building study abroad capacity, and the Study Abroad Toolbox, online training modules for staff, faculty, and administrators.

 

For additional resources on this topic, visit our library and use search tag "travel and study abroad" and search our Weekly Snapshot archives for "study abroad" and "travel abroad."