#no field guide but yet special editions. got it boss!

[bookwyrminspiration]

Yeah, the prequels for Warriors won't make sense unless you've read the first few series. Publication order is the best order. I recommend including special editions in that—they're part of the main timeline. I wouldn't bother with the field guides, though. The information in them is redundant at best, and often contradicts the material from the main books.

There are special editions??? And field guides??? Fin emotionally I am frantically taking notes as I write all this down furiously trying to keep up. I don't know what the special editions are or where they come up in publication order but I'll try my best.

Innocent ol me figuring I'll just check out the fun cat books so many people read as a kid, turns out I've got like a dozen mutuals who woke up like sleeper agents specifically trained to meows who are now all saying so many things telling me so much information. I appreciate the guidance through this overwhelming time.

Thank you kind sir. I will read the special editions, but I will avoid the field guides unless I feel like seeing how contradictory they are. Apparently this is a keeper/warrior cats blog temporarily

[hotarla]

My Thoughts: “Quan Zhi Gao Shou” Episode 10 Summary and Review

Someone is looking mighty guilty for this week’s edition of “My Thoughts.” We’ve got some more reshuffling (and a few more chapters of the novel completely cut out again!) so I’ll try to keep everyone on track with what’s going on.

Spoilers ahead so read at your own risk! Also, expect to see lots of Huang Shao and Yu Wenzhou screenshots! To give you guys a sense of where we are in the novel, we start off around chapter 179 and end around chapter 199, with the addition of chapter 159 for our special “guest.”

The episode starts off with the promised PvP battle in the Heavenly Domain between Poplar Beach and Chasing Haze (played by Ye Xiu). Chen Guo looks nervously on as he plays on her character, incensed when he throws her weapon away. Even while playing on another character (and a female one at that), Ye Xiu still looks pretty kickass as he combos the arrogant guy to death while Poplar Beach’s use of Shadow Steps to create four afterimages proves ineffective against our God. The Global Chat explodes with praise after the win.

At Blue Rain headquarters, Liang Yichun (Changing Spring) watches the recorded battle with the captain of the club, Yu Wenzhou and a very nervous looking Huang Shaotian. With his analytical mind, he is able to deduce Lord Grim’s tactics: throwing the weapon to reduce weight, using the extra speed to PK Poplar Beach. At the mention of Lord Grim, Huang Shaotian chokes on his drink, looking even more guilty than ever and Yu Wenzhou glances at him with a smile, asking him if he knows this “pro.” He immediately denies it vehemently. In the novel, he actually falls off his chair (which I would’ve loved to have seen!) and pretends to ignore Yu Wenzhou when he is called, feigning ignorance when asked about the the 10th server records and trying to change the topic.

As Yu Wenzhou goes on to study the records made in the 10th Server, noting the patterns between the main party for Lord Grim and pointing out the temporary “helpers” of Hateful Sword and Flowing Tree, Huang Shao tries to sneak away but is caught by his captain and told to come back to help out with his analysis. Resigned to his fate, he trudges back while Wenzhou deduces that the record for Boneyard was done by pros from Excellent Era, one of them being the vice captain Liu Hao, as it also coincided with the dismal performance of Excellent Era’s competition battle with Blue Rain. Shaotian pretends to come to the conclusion that the reason for the fast record was because a new strategy was used and Yichun reacts with surprise: why would a pro player like Liu Hao not only spend his time to set a record in the 10th server but also create a new strategy? Wenzhou just smiles and says that the strategy was stolen by Hateful Sword, who was actually Liu Hao in disguise, and that the strategy was originally created by Lord Grim.

Shaotian nervously laughs this off, reacting with feigned incredulity while Wenzhou continues his analysis. He goes on to say that during the pro competition battle, Liu Hao had used Berserker skills while playing with a Spellblade account, further deducing that Hateful Sword was a Berserker account. Shaotian continues to laugh it off: “why would Liu Hao go through all this trouble?” Wenzhou continues to mysteriously smile, saying that Liu Hao obviously had a grudge on this Lord Grim character: he obviously feared him enough to spy on him in the 10th server, yet recognized him enough to use the new strategy and trusted that it would be the best way to beat the dungeon. The only conclusion: Lord Grim is Ye Qiu!

Later, Yichun calls up Xu Boyuan (Blue River) and tells him what the captain had said: Lord Grim is Ye Qiu! (In the novel, this actually takes place in the Heavenly Domain) Blue River looks at Lord Grim’s name in his friend list, his eyes shining with awe before his eyes land on a second name, Flowing Tree. If Lord Grim was Ye Qiu, then this Blade Master could only be…

…Huang Shaotian! Said Blade Master is sitting with his captain, looking mighty guilty about everything as he laughs about the familiarity of the Flowing Tree name as Wenzhou continues to talk calmly. He doesn’t look mad, only highly amused about Shaotian’s actions. Things turn serious as Wenzhou questions Shaotian about Ye Qiu’s (Ye Xiu’s) new unspecialized character and changing silver weapon.

Back at the Internet cafe (I wonder where Bao wandered off to, has he gone back to whence he came?), Tang Rou is looking at dungeon guides written by someone called Concealed Light. We get a bit of Zhou Zekai again (lol what is it with all the fan service? *laughs*) before Ye Xiu wanders by, impressed by what he’s reading from the guide and asks Tang Rou to link him to the author’s account. She does so but shortly after, finds out that someone has killed her in-game while she was idle…

In-game, Ye Xiu gets a message from Huang Shaotian from his Flowing Tree account: you’ve been exposed! Ye Xiu laughs it off, saying that if he was exposed, the same would go for Shaotian. Shaotian agrees before realizing that his captain, Yu Wenzhou, was right behind him! Ye Xiu continues to talk: it’s too bad his hands are handicapped! Shaotian lets Ye Xiu know that Wenzhou was with him but Ye Xiu just continues to lament over Wenzhou’s “handicapped” hands. Wenzhou agrees with this statement, unfazed by the trash talk and asks Ye Xiu for a duel!

The two Gods meet up at the Fixed Arena field: Ye Xiu with Lord Grim and Ye Wenzhou with his Warlock, Swoksaar (in the novel, he used Shaotian’s Blade Master, Flowing Tree to go up against Lord Grim). As the two fight and compare notes, they casually talk, Wenzhou remarking how he envied those with fast APMs (his own, very slow hand speed is made apparent during the battle).

After Ye Xiu wins the battle amid the flashy light shows, they talk a bit more about the pros and cons of unspecialized characters. Ye Xiu leaves and Wenzhou discusses the match with Shaotian. They talk about the false combos Ye Xiu made and, after the captain leaves, Shaotian studies a recording of the match in order to figure out how many he could’ve dodged. Fighting spirit ignited, he immediately logs into the game but makes the mistake of going on his main account, Troubling Rain. After briefly being bombarded by messages, he quickly logs off and goes on his 10th server account, Flowing Tree, to bother Ye Xiu, who responds with indifference, making Shaotian mad (in the novel, he actually logs off his main, logs back into his main but hides his status, tries to contact him and Su Mucheng via QQ messenger before bothering him on his alternate account). I have to admit, his ever-changing expressions are so funny!

Meanwhile, Ye Xiu has just finished reading all the “Idiot” guides that Concealed Light has written. Chen Guo is skeptical about the guides but Ye Xiu tells her that the guides have no mistakes, even though they were written by a complete noob. After telling Ye Xiu about Tang Rou being killed in-game, he lets the rest of the group know that they’re going to the next dungeon, Line Canyon. However, before he can do that, a mysterious character in pink arrives in front of his desk. Who could it possibly be?

It’s Su Mucheng! Like our chatterbox Shaotian, she’s bundled herself up to come and play with Ye Xiu! In the novel, this event would have chronologically taken place in episode 9 while they were still playing in Desolate Land and she was supposed to be bundled up in a bunch of fur (kind of sad they didn’t do that for this episode lol). After Chen Guo leaves (originally, GuoGuo wasn’t around in the novel for her appearance), Ye Xiu has her sit beside him to play. His look of exasperated fondness towards her disguise (as if he’s used to her antics) is just so cute and sweet!

However, after logging in, Ye Xiu notices something fishy about his surroundings. It doesn’t take him too long to figure out as he soon finds himself running and attacking players who are appearing everywhere, determined to kill him! Ye Xiu quickly messages the others in-game and finds out that the same thing is happening to them. Su Mucheng remarks worriedly to Ye Xiu from her seat beside him, wondering if this was another one of Liu Hao’s tricks but Ye Xiu is unsure, although it appears that he has his suspicions.

In another area inside the game, players are looking all over for Steam Bun but are unable to find him. A certain turbaned fellow (*cough*Concealed Light*cough*) is also wandering around looking for him before he spots a well. Accidentally falling in, he comes face to face with an evil sounding voice and…a brick!?

Waha, Steam Bun is hilarious! Pretending to be some “Devil of the Well” was just priceless! I wasn’t expecting Concealed Light to look like that to be honest but at least it’s a tad different from all the other plain looking players with their swords and suits of armour! I kind of miss the fact that the series hasn’t animated a lot of the dungeoning and BOSS battles because those are truly interesting in the novel! Oh well…let’s just see what the next episode has in store for us!

Looks like we’ll be in Congee Forest next week! I see a bit more Concealed Light and some inter-guild cooperation against a certain character. I’m excited for the dual-God collaboration though! Seeing two Godly pro players taking on an entire squad of enemies? I hope we get some Yifan though, I’m feeling a bit Yifan-deprived! And I wonder how it will turn out between Steam Bun and Concealed Light? They don’t have the best of relationships in the novel, although their interactions have always been amusing because of their contrasting personalities. We’ll just have to find out next week! Until then, 再見!

Profile of the Week: Yu Wenzhou’s Warlock, Swoksaar

[nexttimepso2-blog]

Ability Affixing Part 3: Reference Guide

Each Special Ability has different rates for transferring to a different item, and many abilities have increased rates for multiples of the ability present across each item, and some of those cannot even be transferred at all if there is not at least 2 of the ability present! In this article, I’ll break down each group of Special Abilities and what it takes to transfer them across items. If you want to follow along, I am going to be posting screen captures from the spreadsheet I’ve made here: Special Ability Reference document

EDIT: wow you cannot see those images at all; I thought there was some kind of zoom function if you clicked on them haha. yeah just open that spreadsheet right now you are going to need that.

Basic Stat Boosters

This family of abilities are the bare-bones “boosts a single stat” abilities, while they are not too fancy, they do typically give a large amount of the stat they do give.

Power / Shoot / Tech / Arm / Body / React / Mind

I = +10, II = +20, III = +30, IV = +35, V = +40

Stamina I = +20 HP, II = +40, III = +50, IV = +60, V = +70

Spirita I = +2 PP, II = +3, III = +4, IV = +5, V = +6

[Damage Type] Resist I = +3 [Damage Type] Resistance, II = +4, III = +5, IV = +6, V = +7

“Boss soul” varies as different boss souls will supply the 20% boost to different abilities. For specifics, please consult the “Boss Boost” sheet on the Special Ability Reference document. The “Extreceptor” ability’s boost for inheriting Stat IV and Vs appears to be ignored if there are three or more of of the ability present already. Photon (Stamina/Spirita), Attack (Power/Shoot/Tech), and Gaurd(Body/React/Mind) Receptors, Available from support items in the SG Scratch, will transfer their designated Stat V abilities with a 100% rate with only one Stat V ability available.

To upgrade a Stat Boost ability up one grade, you need 2 or 3 of the ability present. any more than that will not have any additional effect.

Mutation I and II are very useful for synthesizing Stat III and Stat IV abilities, Photon Collect only works for Resistances, and is only available on items in the Photon Drop Shop, and cannot be transferred itself, so it’s usefulness is limited at best.

Ability and All Resist

Ability and All Resist are interesting, in that they are often found on items dropped by bosses, and can be transferred; but they are much easier to Synthesize yourself

Ability I = +5 All ATK, DEF, and DEX, II = +10 All, III = +15 All

All Resist I = +1 All Resistances, II = +2, III = +3

As shown here, Ability and All Resist can be hard to move between items once they exist; but if you combine the right abilities you can Synthesize them at a much more agreeable rate. Doom Break and Gryphon Soul can make moving pre-made Ability III and All Resist III reasonable as well.

Boss Souls

Boss Souls are special abilities dropped by bosses or other specific enemies like Rappies and Singo Betes. These abilities typically boost one or more Attack or Defense stats, or Dex, while also supplying a decent amount of HP, PP, or a little bit of both. There are still exceptions to even that much, so be sure to examine each soul you find to see what stats they give! You can only have one boss soul ability on any given item however.

The ability “Soul Receptor” allows you to transfer a boss soul with 100% success, allowing you to safely upslot a boss soul to an item with more ability slots on it. Soul Receptor is only available on items obtained from PSO2es, the mobile companion game for iOS and Android.

Toh’oh and Full Vegas Soul added in Episode 4 have 10% higher transfer rates, but they also have another use: to synthesize a set of special soul abilities

By having an Earth soul and a soul ability of a Free Field Quest boss (forest uses Fang Soul, and Desert is unrepresented), you can create your choice of Act the Soul, Till the Soul, and Magi the soul. These souls have +35 to an ATK stat with +3 PP, making them easy to make and use. However, once made these souls can only be transferred at half the rates normal souls use, but it’s not too difficult to synthesize a new one if you need too.

Mutation

Mutation I appears on gear dropped by bosses that have a title on their name, such as “Tyrant Rockbear”.  Meanwhile Mutation II can either be dropped by the special-titled bosses within Seasonal Emergency Quests, like “Tempest King: Fang Banther”. Mutation II can also be synthesized when 3 to 5 Mutation Is are present.

As noted earlier, Mutation I and II both help substantially with synthesizing a Stat III ability from combining Stat IIs however they do also give a respectable amount of All-ATK too!

Mutation I = +10 All-ATK and HP, II = +15 All-ATK and HP 

Vinculum and Modulator

Vinculum = +20 All-ATK

Modulator = +30 All-ATK

Vinculum and Modulator are pretty simple yet powerful abilities, they give a large chunk of All-ATK, but you cannot have both of them on the same item. Therefore people tend to favor Modulator over Vinculum, despite Modulator exclusively dropping on items found from ARKS Clones.

Vinculum seems to drop mostly from boss-based Emergency Quests, and bosses encountered in Emergency Quests that have a two-part name; the original example of this is “Mad Machine: Big Vardha”. Though this type of way to point out what drops Vinc seems kinda sketchy since I think many of the translated enemy titles have 2 words to the name anyway. Vinculum is also hard to move around to new items without Anga Soul present.

Modulator is easier to move to a destination item, but ARKS Clones are extremely rare these days. Clones only appear in Single Party Areas of quests that do not have a set enemy spawn layout, or at the end of the Time Attack Abduction quest, where you must face-off against your own clone.

Stigma and Extreme Quest Abilities

Stigma = +20 DEX +5PP

Flict Arma = +20 S-ATK +3 PP

Flict Tiro = +20 R-ATK +3 PP

Flict Magia = +20 T-ATK +3 PP

Alter Arma/Tiro/Magia = +20 ATK, +30 HP

Stigma appears on items dropped by rare enemies, either rare versions of enemies as well as Rappies, Tagami and Izane Kazutchi. DEX is kind of a useless stat so the real thing here is the +5 PP. Incompatible with the Extreme Quest abilities for some reason.

Flict/Alter Arma/Tiro/Magia appear on items dropped in Extreme Quests, so they are hard to come across unless you are running those often. They require three of the same ability in order to transfer at all, so they are hard to move even when you do find a bunch of them. They can also be moved with Extreceptor and 1 of the desired abilities; while this makes it a whole lot easier, Extreceptor is only available from reward items in Extra Hard PSO2es Emergency Missions, so the supply of Extreceptor is very limited.

Raid Boss Factors

Yamato Factor = +20 R-ATK, +10 S/T-ATK, +20HP, +1PP

Mother Factor = +20 T-ATK, +10 S/R-ATK, +20HP, +1PP

Deus Factor = +20 S-ATK, +10 R/T-ATK, +20HP, +1PP

The Episode 4 Emergency Quest Bosses drop items with Factor abilities with their names, instead of Soul abilities. Statistically, they are similar to Flict/Alter abilities but with +10 of the other ATK stats. Each of the Episode 4 Souls, Toh’oh Soul, Full Vegas Soul, and Escared Soul, boost one of the factor’s transfer rates by 20%. While Yamato and Deus factors will drop with the soul that helps transfer them, Mother Factor needs you to bring in a Full Vegas Soul from another item to boost it.

Status Effects

Status Effect abilities are only available for weapons. They can be a bit hard to move around, but in general people don’t go out of their way for them anyway. They can be nice for Fighter mains or subs, since you could use them to help activate Chase Advance on an enemy, or if a boss reacts to a particular status effect.

Doom Break and Miscellaneous Abilities

Doom Break = +15 All-ATK, +2PP

Seasonal Rappy and Nayu Fevers = various stats, never more than some combination of +10 ATK, +5 DEX, +5-10HP, +1-2PP

Spirita Alpha = +30 DEX, +3PP

Doom Break used to only appear on items dropped by Odin from the FFXIV collab event; you can still run into Odin randomly in ARKS Quests and Free Field Quests, or as a Parallel Area for his arena, but now they have added it to most of the items that Laplace’s Demon drops, and made the big guy show up in Wind and Rain, and hopefully every seasonal EQ from here on out he’s not going to be in Beach Wars 2017 so now I got no idea if that was a fluke or what. It also gives a +20% boost to Ability III’s transfer rates

Seasonal Rappy and Nayu fever abilities are basically “Junk” abilities that do a little more than the typical Junk abilities. Saint Fever, Love Fever, and Latan Fever are notable for being +10 ATK +2 PP, while Frog Fever, Lovey Fever, and Egg Fever give +10 ATK +10 HP. all six of these come one after another from Haloween through Rainy season Rappies.

Spirita Alpha shows up on item rewards from Code: Variant emergency trials when a person uses a Rare Enemy trigger item from the casino. that or you get Pink ARKS badges as a reward to trade-in for units with Spirita Alpha on them. Nobody really uses this because it’s not much PP and DEX doesn’t really do anything important.

Ultimate Buster only appears on weapons dropped on Extra Hard difficulty, requires 5 items with the ability to even transfer, and cannot be added to 13-star weapons at all. it boosts damage against Ultimate-area enemies by 10%; so it was meant more to help people fight through the Ultimate areas back when they were still new, and 13-star weapons were much harder to obtain. These days it just means weapons can have 1 more ability that can show up on them to boost the overall number of slots that appear on them.

Affixing Hell: Catalysts and Returner

Soul Catalyst, Factor Catalyst, and Ether Soul are very hard to make. I just sell any unit I get with a Falz soul on it these days. they make good cash since people still want to make Soul Catalysts for Astral Soul.

Factor Catalyst and Ether Soul on the other hand are a bit easier, since the Episode 4 Raid Bosses tend to drop their Factor abilities on most of the items they drop (Yamato’s going to get buffed to do that better soon), though since they are all schedule-only emergency quests, the supply lives and dies based on Sega’s Scheduling.

Astral Soul = +35 ALL, +35 HP, +5 PP

Ether Factor = +30 ALL, +10 HP, +6 PP

And here we see why people bother chasing after Soul and Factor Catalysts.

Astral Soul is far and away the strongest soul ability in the game, while the Earth Compound Souls do give +35 to one ATK, Astral just gives everything +35. so really it’s more of an end-goal for users seeking a generalist unit setup.

Ether Factor is the same way, though it trades away most of the HP for more PP. Ether Factor seems a little easier to make since Factor Catalyst only needs 3 ingredients to Soul Catalyst’s 5.

Since Astral and Ether require 4 catalysts, and you cannot have more than one catalyst on a single item, it is impossible to synthesize them both at the same time. Ignore that bit about Astral Soul having a 10% Inheritance Rate with Soul Receptor. Just... don’t look at it...

Returner

I = +3 ALL, +3 HP, +1PP

II = +5 ALL, +5 HP, +2 PP

III = +10 ALL, +10 HP, +3 PP

IV = +15 ALL, +15 HP, +4 PP

V = +30 ALL, +30 HP, +5 PP

Upon clearing the Time Trial Abduction Quest, you are rewarded with a 1 to 2 slot unit with Returner I (Super Hard) or Returner III (Extra Hard)

Returner is Upslot Hell.

There are people with one or more unit that has Astral Soul and Returner V on them, but these people have billions of meseta at their disposal.

Add Special Ability items

AC and SG Scratch have a set of items in their prize pool that attach a special ability to an item at the end of the affixing process. These abilities are great in general, but the ones from the AC Scratch generally cost a lot of money to buy from other players, and the ones from the SG scratch are a little hard to come across. They cannot be inherited, so you want to use them for when you want to lock-in your abilities on your units for a good while.

Special Ability Factors (SAFs)

New-Type weapons, when ground to +35, are able to transfer an ability with 100% transfer rate when they are used in Special Ability Affixing. Even the base weapon can provide an SAF, so more often than not you will want to try to stick some cheap abilities on your weapon after you have ground it up to +35 just so you can also obtain it’s SAF. This does -not- consume the ability if someday you decide to use the weapon to affix another weapon, so there is hardly any reason to not affix a base weapon’s SAF if it is available.

Since new weapons are being added every so often, Please consult the Special Ability Factor page of my spreadsheet for more info. (as of this writing I have not added an SAF page)

Swiki also has a good page listing Special Ability Factors, so check that out too.

Sentence and Phrase abilities are only available as SAFs, as well as some normally unobtainable grades of other abilities, like Ability IV (14-star weapons) and Power VI (Seikaiser weapons from upgraded Yamato)

Closing Statements

As PSO2 continues, I will try to update this post with new abilities as they are added, or at least keep the spreadsheet, updated.

There is still one more article left in me for ramble on about Special Abilities, and that is an article on how to get yourself setup with some decent unit abilities without spending a lot of meseta chasing after stuff like Flict/Alter or Modulator.

[touristguidebuzz]

Maiden Voyage CEO on Leveling the Playing Field for Female Business Travelers

Carolyn Pearson, CEO of Maiden Voyage. The company just released a set of educational modules to help level the playing field for female business travelers. Maiden Voyage

Skift Take: Supervisors who don't send women on business trips, in a misguided effort to avoid dealing with women's safety issues, are doing their companies a disservice by suppressing that talent. Companies that tackle that duty of care head-on are playing with a full deck.

— Sarah Enelow

Maiden Voyage, which serves female business travelers and the travel companies hoping to capture that market, said in its Women in Business Travel Report 2016 that 31.4 percent of female business travelers globally have encountered sexual harassment while traveling.

Risks also extend to theft, assault, rape, and kidnapping. Then, with that on her mind, making constant micro-calculations about her surroundings, the female business traveler must do what what she actually came to do: meet a client, make a presentation, close a deal.

Some women struggle to even land professional opportunities that require travel because male supervisors know the safety risks and don’t want to deal with them, much less pay more for a safer hotel or taxis to avoid walking alone at night.

Maiden Voyage, which is headquartered in Leeds, England, wants to level the playing field with a new set of video courses on five subjects: pre-planning and packing, safe ground transportation, hotel safety, intercultural awareness, and safe meetings and leisure time.

These 20-minute modules are interactive with maps, audio testimonials, and trivia questions. What percentage of women reported feeling vulnerable when traveling on public transport? 67 percent, according to research conducted by Maiden Voyage.

The company also inspects hotels and certifies those that meet certain minimum safety requirements, and offers training for hotel staff.

These measures aren’t just about making travelers more comfortable — they’re also a legal obligation to protect a growing group of women. Research from the Global Business Travel Association shows that 37 percent of U.S. business travelers in 2016 were female, a slight increase from 35 percent in 2013.

“If something goes wrong, the company will need to be able to show in a trial that they took adequate measures to safeguard their travelers,” Maiden Voyage CEO Carolyn Pearson told Skift. “That would be briefings and training and an audit trail of what they did to safeguard that trip, or maybe even a risk assessment. We know from the potential of the market that we’ve entered that probably 95 percent of people are failing on that already.”

Skift spoke with Pearson to find out how companies can support their female business travelers without pandering, how supervisors can feel more confident selecting women to travel, and how corporate travel buyers are failing and succeeding in keeping employees safe. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Skift: Do you find that many women opt out of business travel? In the workplace if women worry about being seen as fragile or needing protection or being different from their male counterparts, how do you address that urge to avoid business travel altogether?

Pearson: We’ve spoken to lots of women who’ve not taken the next step because that entailed business travel. Obviously the first and foremost issue is how do they balance everything if they’ve got a family and kids and all of that. But also there is some genuine fear if they’re traveling to areas where they’re going to have to go by themselves and there is some concern that they just don’t feel comfortable doing it by themselves. And so they don’t apply for those next levels up.

But what we know from one of the Swiss pharmaceutical companies that we’re speaking to is that they’re now getting candidates who are applying for jobs with those companies that entail travel. Now what are you going to do? What are your duty of care measures that you’ve got in place to make sure that I’ll be safe when I’m traveling on business?

Also, things like what standard of hotels will you put me in? Will I be flying in economy or business class? Am I allowed to fly in sociable hours and what about transfers? What ground transportation will you offer me when I arrive in a country?

Skift: I imagine transparency is always good in these cases.

Pearson: Yeah.

Skift: How can women inspire more confidence in their male bosses so they select women to go on the road more often, and do so more confidently?

Pearson: A lot of the travel security managers are ex-military, they served in Iraq or Afghanistan and places like that. They’re kind of roughty toughty guys and women are getting into more senior roles. They’re becoming more empowered and more vocal in the workplace. It’s a fine line between having a conversation with a woman about the gender-specific travel risks and isolating her, feeling that she’s been discriminated against and treated like the weak sex and patronizing a woman who’s used to traveling around the world by herself.

Some guys refrain from having that conversation because unfortunately once or twice they’ve had their heads bitten off by somebody who’s said to them, ‘Don’t talk to me like that. You wouldn’t have that conversation with a male colleague.’ It’s tricky for the guys to get this right but I think the women have to also accept that they can play a part in that. If a man is offering some travel safety advice, he’s not doing it because he’s being an idiot. He’s doing it because it’s genuinely responsible. He’s got legal and moral obligations for her safety and he’s probably got a wife and daughter at home as well and so I think we should be a little bit less touchy about the fact that somebody’s giving us that information, because complacency is really where the biggest risk comes from.

If somebody just said to me, ‘Oh I see that you’re going to Iran. Remember that you need to put a headscarf on when you enter Iranian airspace.’ ‘Oh yeah. Good point. I’ll pack my pashmina,’ for example.

Skift: You’ll need support on both sides of the aisle because it’s going to be a rare workplace where there are no male employees or no male leadership.

Pearson: Yeah. I speak at a lot of security conferences where it is 90 percent men. A lot of them do say to me you know they’re really nervous about having these conversations, so they don’t, and they know that they’re failing in their duty of care by not having the conversations.

Skift: Do you see a difference in the way that business travel for women is handled in companies with managed travel programs versus unmanaged programs?

Pearson: No. It’s really interesting because we’re starting to see companies now putting a question in the RFP asking the TMCs [travel management companies] what they do to safeguard female business travelers, and we had a TMC say to us that they lost a multimillion pound deal with a company because they didn’t adequately answer that question. The clients want it but the TMCs haven’t really thought about it yet. We work with one or two TMCs but actually I was speaking to a travel conference yesterday of TMCs and they said to them, ‘Put your hand up if you are already considering the gender-specific needs of your travelers.’ About 10 percent maximum put their hands up. The travel managers, I guess, are a little bit more savvy around the wants and needs of their travelers than the TMCs are.

Skift: Let’s switch gears just a bit. I’m wondering if such political events like Brexit or maybe President Trump’s travel ban are having a special effect on female business travelers?

Pearson: Brexit means companies are having to trade further afield. Whilst women may be experienced in traveling within Europe, and of course we’ve got the border controls where we can just sail through, we’re going to have to travel further afield maybe to achieve that same amount of imports and revenue. Therefore, that means by nature that we’ll be traveling to areas which are more culturally diverse and therefore, longer time at passport. You’ve got one woman actually who was saying to us that whenever she travels she gets stopped and cross-examined while her male colleagues don’t. Yeah, definitely there’ll be the differences in terms of, knowing what the cultural differences are, adhering to them, and also the extra step of maybe more cross-examination at borders.

Skift: What can women do about the fact that being safe on the road — for example staying in a more secure hotel, taking taxis at night, maybe hiring a guide or a translator — is more expensive than being unsafe?

Pearson: It’s interesting because the travel manager, the guy who does the deals with the hotels or with the TMCs typically, I would say 85 percent of those travel managers are only concerned with cost and compliance to the travel policy. The savvy ones, the top 15 percent are the ones that actually say, ‘No, I’m also responsible for duty of care.’ If they’re concerned only with cost and compliance then they’re going to by nature not be looking at duty of care, which is therefore going to give people less of a reason to comply to a travel policy.

If a travel manager gets that duty of care is part of his job as well, then that’s absolutely fine, but if they don’t, then of course they’re going to be putting women and all their travelers potentially in more unsafe situations. But if something does go wrong the overall cost to the company of course is massive because it impacts everybody. Impacts the reputation, the actual cost of the person that’s left or has been injured or refusing to come back or the insurance issues around that, the connected PR possibly, the time spent within HR.

Sometimes it doesn’t make sense to save 10 pounds. Actually when I’m speaking to the TMCs I like to talk about the total cost of the trip. If the travel manager is saying, ‘Well, I want you to put a rate cap of $200 in Manhattan,’ and for whatever reason the rates are really high in this certain area because there’s something going on and people are having to stay further away, then they’re going to spend extra in cabs anyway, and so the total cost of the trip might be higher because they’ve tried to stay on budget with the hotel. Of course, the risk goes higher because they’re staying out of town.

Skift: Corporate travel executives talk a lot about disruption from sharing economy services. How have Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, VRBO etc. affected female business travelers? Are women more or less worried about safety?

Pearson: What I can see, because I spent some time looking behind the scenes of Airbnb and Uber, is that they massively want the corporate market. They’re willing to change their systems and their processes and their models to tap into the corporate markets. Of course, it’s a massive growth area. What I know is that a lot of travelers are using these services anyway. Whether or not they’re using them through the corporate travel systems is another thing. But actually again with the more savvy companies, if they know that their staff are using these services then they’re better off bringing them into the travel program because then if they use the business ready solutions of Uber where you’ve got higher insurance or Airbnb where you’ve got a better standard of property, then it’s the safer thing all around.

Skift: Last year I wrote a story about hotel rooms created specifically for female travelers, and in that research I saw that there are a couple of different ways to approach that product. The cheaper way is to put some amenities in the room that are generally accepted to be female-friendly, maybe fresh flowers, chocolates. I’ve seen free pantyhose, rooms painted pink. The more difficult and expensive way is to look at safety, for example, how secure are these rooms on the first floor? 

To that end, how do we serve female business travelers without falling into the ‘pink room’ trap, without pandering?

Pearson: What we found is that hotels that really want to work with us, they’ve got a minimum criteria that they need to adhere to. The big one is double locking doors, so [they need] a separate chain on the door so no one can get in once you’re in, or at least you can be alerted to the fact that somebody else is trying to get in. We found the hotels that want to do that are actually putting the second locks in now. In the past we used to inspect hotels. My heart would sink when I’d come across one that didn’t have double locking doors although it’s got everything else, but literally nowadays the hotel is saying if we come across a room that doesn’t have a double lock, we’ll put it in because we really want to work with you because they see the value of the growing female business travel market.

But actually we know some TMCs that don’t even work with hotels that don’t have double locking doors. I don’t think women need any extra security. I think double locking doors are also important for men, but the implication of a man walking into a room when there’s a woman there is obviously that the risk is higher for her than it is for a man because women are more frequently sexually assaulted or sexually harassed.

You must probably point to the incident that happened with Erin Andrews, where she was filmed through a hotel spyhole.

Skift: Yes. Erin Andrews eventually, after a very long legal process, was compensated for that. That was a very important case.

Pearson: If you look back as to how that happened, he actually called the hotel, I believe, and said that they were colleagues and they were traveling together. Obviously hotels get phoned all day, every day, so it’s probably very easy for that to happen and for it to be viable 99 percent of the time, but I guess if you’ve got a high-profile female you might want to check that with the person responsible for the booking.

Skift: It’s shockingly easy for these incidents to happen. We see that in these new educational videos you’ve created, with the audio testimonials. Particularly I remember from the demo this woman who was being lured by a man to stay in his hotel room.

Pearson: Yeah. I think what we want to achieve by our training, whether it’s the classroom training or the e-learning, is that you’ve already thought about a plan B and a plan C. What we find is that risk escalates really quickly, and so if something goes wrong, if you’ve got a plan B then it stops there, whereas if you have no plan, your emotions are heightened, the chemicals in your body and your brain are heightened and then you’re not thinking logically. You’re making mistakes and then that’s when things can really go wrong.

We had one woman who arrived in Lagos and the driver didn’t appear and she was terrified. But if she’d gone through our training, there’s a thousand things that she would have done beforehand. She would have the number for the company. She would have had the number for the office. She would have had a backup solution in place, all of those kinds of things so that she’s, ‘OK, the driver hasn’t turned up. I still haven’t run out of options. I’ve got all these other things I can do.’

Skift: The hour at which you arrive in a new place is crucial. I think it was astute to have an entire module devoted to: My plane has landed, how am I getting from the plane to my hotel? Or from the plane to the convention?

Pearson: Yeah. I have a story. Yesterday, two women who were sexually assaulted before they’d even left the airport.

Skift: Oh my goodness.

Pearson: In Egypt, in the ladies toilet.

Skift: Goodness, well this is why your company exists.

Pearson: Yeah, sadly. I wish we were just around to make business travel social and it was naturally safe.