Planning · Journal
How should a DMC handle the biggest risks in incentive travel?
Write the risk in the operations annex before the welcome letter: inventory, weather, airstrips, visas, health, politics, and reputation. Named 24-hour desk, contracted medevac, recovery nights, and a will-not list — not a slide titled ‘safety first.’
What we tell planners
The biggest risks on East Africa incentive programmes are operational, not cinematic. Inventory (peak camps and gorilla permits selling out). Weather (long rains, kiremt, Mauritius cyclone season, island wind, airstrip sock-in). Documentation (Kenya eTA, Tanzania e-visa, EATV not covering Tanzania, yellow fever on some routings). Health (malaria belts, altitude in Addis/Simien/crater rims, fitness on gorilla and Kilimanjaro days). Air (multi-origin windows, light-aircraft luggage, no gala on landing night). Reputation (costume ethnography, orphanage tourism). Politics and advisories that change a northern Ethiopia historic circuit. A DMC handles these by putting them in the proposal, not in a verbal aside.
What ‘handling’ looks like for an incentive house: a named operations lead and a 24-hour number in a real timezone; vehicles, boats and night-driving rules in writing; flying-doctor or equivalent contracted before arrival; split-camp and split-gorilla-family plans; indoor and tide backups for galas; a dated visa matrix by nationality; optional activities that are truly optional; and a will-not paragraph (landing-night gala, promised crossings, 200 in a six-tent camp). When a Seronera airstrip closes or a Praslin boat cancels, the DMC rewrites the day — the agency should not be discovering the backup on WhatsApp at 02:00.
Corporate event managers should score this in the RFP: itemised exclusions, cancellation ladders that follow lodge and permit rules, and whether the DMC will refuse an inoperable idea. A partner who ‘can make anything work’ is not handling risk. They are transferring it to you.
What to brief next
- — Ops annex before welcome letter: weather, visas, health, airstrips, politics, reputation.
- — Contracted medevac, named 24-hour desk, split groups, recovery night.
- — A DMC that will not refuse an unsafe or inoperable brief is a no-go.
Related: Duty of care · Go/no-go questions · Risk management · Destination risk and air · RFP