You may wonder how getting an estimate on a new roof triggered this blog posting about the use of photos and other imagery in travel marketing. 

Writers make weird mental connections all the time (at least this one does). The trick is to figure out if there’s a lesson to be learned or a worthwhile story to tell. But I guess we should start with the roof.

 As a marketing executive for cruise and tour companies most of my career, I thought that managing risk on the job was a relatively benign duty.

Risks usually focused on ROI with a direct mail campaign, or going out with empty cruise ship cabins and taking appropriate actions to mitigate that possibility. Sure, there was some risk in making sure we had talented employees or suppliers and enough of them to get the work done to make our sales forecast. But you would be hard pressed to say these sorts of risks were career or life threatening.

Recently, while serving as the director of the industry association IAATO, I was introduced to other types of risks and risk management tools. One of them – Foreign Voluntary Workers Compensation Insurance – caught my attention, and I think it’s worth writing about. I’d like to hear your comments on this issue, too.