Safety and security are vital to the enjoyment of any holiday or travel adventure. So, it’s reassuring to know that thousands of ISO standards are working behind the scenes to prevent you from becoming a statistic.
Including everything from ensuring trains, planes and automobiles take you places without a hitch, to providing minimum safety requirements for the food you eat and the adventures you embark on, here’s a look at the top five.
1. Safety on your plate
One of the highlights of travel and tourism is eating local cuisine, but it is not without its dangers. While you might be able to avoid eating fugu1), a fish that can bring on progressive paralysis and kill you within a few hours, you may not be aware of hidden germs lurking on your plate due to poor hygiene practices. Considering that an estimated 600 million people get sick from eating contaminated food each year2), it pays to eat in reputable establishments.
By favouring suppliers who use ISO 22000, Food safety management — Requirements for any organization in the food chain, however, you can have your cake and eat it too. This standard ensures that organizations are providing products that are safe to eat as intended and comply with any food safety regulations.
2. Venture forth in safety
Looking for some thrills and spills on your next trip? Adventure tourism is booming, and so are the safety regulations that go with it.
ISO 21101, Adventure tourism — Safety management systems — Requirements, gives adventure tourism activity providers a way to put in place a safety management system, ensuring participants have a great experience, and survive to tell the tale.
The standard enables the adventure tourism operator to improve their safety performance, meet expectations for participant and staff safety, and support compliance with applicable legal requirements.
3. Safe summer-tobogganing
Tobogganing is fun, family-friendly, and a great way to get your thrills in summer. One of the longest, in Switzerland, is 15 km long, and just to get to the start takes a 25-minute cable-car ride and a two-hour hike uphill. Shorter rides are found the world over, including a three-minute descent on the Great Wall of China3). Wherever you toboggan, safety is paramount.
ISO 19202, Summer toboggan runs — Part 1: Safety requirements and test methods, and Part 2: Safety requirements for operation, provide safety requirements for the design, build and operation of toboggans, covering everything from the planning of the tracks to signage, repair and maintenance.
4. All at sea: keeping safe in the water
When getting overboard is more likely, or even the objective, such as for water sports or boating trips, it’s important to have quality lifejackets that keep you afloat and work as intended.
The ISO 12402 series of standards, Personal flotation devices (several parts) serves as an internationally agreed guide to manufacturers, purchasers and users of flotation devices to ensure the equipment works effectively. It outlines the safety requirements and test methods of lifejackets, buoyancy aids and accessories to protect a user from drowning.
5. All onboard: cruising to safety
Around 30 million holidaymakers are expected to go on a cruising holiday this year, and the industry is growing, with more ships, destinations and themes every year4). The safety of these ships is rarely put into question, and falling overboard is rare, yet it still happened to 18 unlucky passengers in 20185).
ISO/PAS 21195, Ships and marine technology — Systems for the detection of persons while going overboard from ships (Man overboard detection), provides internationally agreed technical specifications for systems designed to detect a person who has gone overboard from a passenger ship, so they can be quickly located and brought back onboard.
