Travel warnings boring; needs to be in “plain English”

DFAT’s Smartraveller scheme is considered a flop while government travel warnings are said to be too boring for Aussies travelling overseas, according to a new report.

As per a report in the Canberra Times, the National Audit Office (ANAO) found the Department of Foreign Affairs’ (DFAT) Smartraveller registration scheme has not been successful in signing up travellers and somewhat encouraging a “sense of dependency” for those that do.

The ANAO report gave DFAT a good rap for its efforts in what the paper cites as a “difficult and complex area” referring to overseas consular operations, but the auditors highlighted the length and “rambling” nature of wordy government travel advisories would lose the attention span of those heading overseas.

“This commentary is often lengthier than that of international counterparts; the United Kingdom’s terrorism warnings for low risk countries were, on average, 50% shorter than those issued by DFAT,” the audit team wrote, the paper cited.

“The ANAO’s analysis suggests that travellers are unwilling to invest the time needed to read the lengthy travel advisories.

“The average visitor to DFAT’s travel advice pages spends less than a third of the time required to read an advisory in its entirety.”

“The team from the audit office also found inconsistency in decision-making between different consular posts meaning the level of help given to an Australian in distress overseas might depend on the attitude of the DFAT officer looking at their case,” the paper reports.

The auditors suggested to Foreign Affairs to write the reports in “plain English” and shorten warnings, particularly in lights of only 8% of respondents in the DFAT survey said they would change its behaviour when travelling overseas on the department’s advice.

“Reducing the length of advisories, improving the conciseness of messages and using simpler language would also make advisories more accessible to those with limited English language backgrounds,” the ANAO team wrote, the paper said.

According to the report, the Smartraveller registration scheme was “performing poorly” with “very few travellers registering their details”, attributed to the lengthy online process to do so.

“The ANAO’s analysis of Smartraveller website data … suggests that travellers become disengaged during the registration process as only 20% of those who visit the starting page complete the registration process,” the auditors wrote, the paper said.

“The research also indicated that registration could encourage a mindset of dependency that the department seeks to avoid,” they noted.

“The research found that encouraging registration created a perception that the Government would provide a ‘safety net’ in the event of an emergency, and that this perception may conflict with the attempts by DFAT to encourage self‐sufficiency.”

The paper said DFAT has shown interest to make some changes to its management of Australian consular stations in light of the report, but numerous other points raised by the latest ANAO report had been dealt with in its Consular Strategy 2014-16 released last November.

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Latest comments

Bruce says:
February 12, 2015 at 4:16 pm
That’s spot on Tim, and furthermore the warnings focus on statistically improbable things that play on emotions & sensationalism such as terrorism and political matters. They dont go near real risks – the #1 being road accidents (including for pedestrians). In Thailand for example its by miles the #1 risk. They should also be specific. For example: saying down to Earth things like “Don’t be an idiot and ride a motorcycle in Koh Samui as it has the highest road death rate in all of Asia.” – that would get people’s attention more than droll Govt speak.
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Timothy Hughes says:
February 12, 2015 at 12:40 pm
SmartTraveller and government warnings are also poorly thought through and mis-assess risk. Borderline racially biased. The warning for Thailand says people should “exercise a high degree of caution in Thailand due to the possibility of civil unrest and the threat of terrorist attack”. Yet there are number of deaths by such attacks number less than 5 in the 2.5 years I have lived here. The warning for the USA says “We advise you to exercise normal safety precautions in the United States.” Nowhere does it mention the dangers of country which has open carry laws in half the states. These are laws that allow people to walk around opening carrying firearms – including semi automatic weapons. Nowhere does it state that the US has the highest gun homicide rate in the world. Nothing about school shootings or attacks. Right now it is more dangerous to send your kids to school in America than in Thailand. Our government’s warnings are completely silent on the dangers of the US and overstate the dangers in other countries such as Thailand
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