Travelers got a real shock this summer when the authorities in Great Britain busted a purported terrorist ring allegedly planning to blow up nine or ten airliners over the Atlantic Ocean. Tourists and businessmen and -women found themselves unloading handbags and luggage of shampoo, toothpaste, hand lotion, and other liquids; more seriously, many found cell phones and even laptops confiscated. Suddenly, a whole segment of the population used to instant global communications found themselves unplugged.
Tourists can probably get along without cell phones and laptops, and will undoubtedly adjust; but what about businesspeople? Executives and technicians who travel with their needed laptops and phones face either getting along without them or packing them inside checked luggage, thus risking their loss. With theft of the contents of checked luggage at an all-time high, this is a potentially expensive proposition.
Fortunately, the business world can count on some enterprising entrepreneur to come up with a creative solution. Rental cell phones and laptops will undoubtedly pop up, available in stores and hotels in major cities around the world. Businesspeople will be able to upload information from their own PC or cell phone back home, complete the work they have to do, and then send the completed work over the Internet wherever they need to before turning in the rental equipment. Of course, security will be a concern when accessing valuable information on a rental computer or cell, but that will undoubtedly be solved, too.
This latest spate of security measures may have put a dent in global business practices, but the corporate world will adapt, quickly, and the inconvenience travelers are dealing with now will end up being a small, temporary glitch.
Aldene Fredenburg is a freelance writer living in southwestern New Hampshire. She has written numerous articles for local and regional newspapers and for a number of Internet websites, including Tips and Topics. She expresses her opinions periodically on her blog, http://beyondagendas.blogspot.com.