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CNN Saturday Morning News

Interview With Tim Daniel

Aired April 06, 2002 - 09:32   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: These days you may want to check more than the weather report before heading on your next vacation. Depending on where you're going, you may also want a security report. There are companies willing to provide that service for you for a fee.

Joining us now is Tim Daniel of International SOS Online. Hi, Tim.

TIM DANIEL, ONLINE DIVISION, INTERNATIONAL SOS: Morning, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Well, tell us about your business and how this works.

DANIEL: Well, we've had about 25 years of experience helping travelers when they're overseas, and for a large part of that time it's been very focused on reacting to the problem after it occurred.

But about four or five years ago, we realized that we could offer assistance prior to travel, and that's really getting people information about the destination and then letting them have the safety net they need if should -- something should go wrong when they're out on the road.

PHILLIPS: So give me an example. Say I want to travel to, I don't know, Bali. Can I come onto a Web site and find out if there's been warnings issued by the government, or the military? Tell me the specifics.

DANIEL: It's exactly that kind of information that we provide. It looks at really health, safety, and productivity, or leisure enjoyment aspects of the trip. So if you're going to Bali, you obviously are probably going for a leisure trip, so you might be interested in what sorts of food you shouldn't eat, what sort of vaccinations you might need.

And you probably have some personal safety concerns.

So our Web site attempts to address that with a catalog of information. And then that information can be followed up just prior to travel with e-mails or other sorts of alerts that can get to you with sort of snippets of late-breaking news, so to speak.

PHILLIPS: What if I get somewhere and something breaks out in a -- say I go -- I was in Israel, and then all of a sudden this violence broke out, and I was in Ramallah, and I couldn't get out, and I didn't know what to do. Do you go -- to what extreme do you go to help someone legally, medically?

DANIEL: Right. Well, again, that's what we've been doing for over 25 years. The example you just gave is something that we deal with on a regular basis. And it all starts with a phone call or some kind of communication. Oftentimes it's not from the traveler itself, it's from their family or from their company.

And then from there we assess the situation. In the case of a security situation, oftentimes the advice is to stand where you are and to let the situation dissipate.

Medical situations, on the other hand, we tend to be much more involved early on so that if it gets worse we can move that person to a better source of health care.

Last year we had about 11,000 instances where someone needed to be either medically evacuated or repatriated home because of a medical condition. But that only happens about one time in five or six. Most of the time we can sort things out on the ground by bringing the right resources to bear.

PHILLIPS: And how much does it cost? Do you go online, do you call, do you sign up, is there annual dues?

DANIEL: Well, there's a variety of ways that people can take advantage of this. A lot of our customers are major corporations, and they put this in place for their international travelers. The individual can buy a travel insurance program which includes that information, the assistance while you're traveling, as well as some financial protection.

PHILLIPS: Once again, it's International SOS Online. Is that what you would type into the computer? Is that the slug?

DANIEL: It's internationalsos.com.

PHILLIPS: All right. Tim Daniel, interesting, thank you so much.

DANIEL: Thank you, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right.

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