Most clients who contact us have never been through a formal risk assessment before, and the phrase itself sounds heavier than the process actually is. It isn't an interrogation and it isn't a pretext for upselling the largest package we offer. It's a structured piece of planning work that happens before anyone is deployed, and it produces a written plan that determines everything that follows — team size, vehicles, whether a residence needs coverage, and how the itinerary should actually run. Here's what happens, in order.
The Confidential Briefing
It starts with a conversation, held in confidence and usually under NDA, where we ask for specifics rather than generalities. We need the real itinerary, not a rough outline — dates, cities, the venues involved, who is travelling and in what capacity, and what makes this particular trip higher or lower profile than an ordinary visit. A solo executive attending closed-door meetings has a very different exposure profile from a family travelling with children, or a public figure attending a launch event where their presence is publicised in advance. None of this is idle curiosity: every answer feeds directly into the plan that follows, so vague answers produce a vague — and less useful — assessment.
Desk Research on Routes and Conditions
Once we understand who is travelling and why, we research the specifics of the trip itself: the routes between airport, hotel, venues and residence; the areas involved and their current conditions; anything happening locally around the travel dates that could affect movement, from road closures to major events drawing crowds. This is where Morocco-specific knowledge matters — traffic patterns in Casablanca are not traffic patterns in Marrakech, and a route that works cleanly on a weekday afternoon can be a poor choice during a public holiday or a scheduled procession. We're not working from generic country risk ratings; we're working from what's actually happening on the ground for your specific dates.
The Advance Visit, Where It's Feasible
For engagements that justify it — a residential stay, a venue we haven't worked before, a higher-profile visit — we send someone to physically check the location ahead of the client's arrival. That means walking the venue or the villa, checking entry and exit points, assessing what residential security actually requires on-site rather than guessing from a floor plan, and confirming that what was described to us over the phone matches what's really there. An advance visit is the difference between a plan built on assumptions and one built on direct observation, and it's one of the most valuable steps in the whole process precisely because it's the one most other providers skip.
The Written Deliverable
The assessment ends with a document, not a phone call. Clients receive an actual security plan they can read, keep and refer back to — not a verbal recommendation they have to take on trust. That document lays out the reasoning behind every operational decision that follows:
- Team size and composition for the specific itinerary
- Vehicle count and type for each leg of the trip
- Whether the residence or venue needs standing coverage, and for how long
- Route options and timing recommendations for each movement
The Assessment Sets the Plan — Not the Other Way Around
This is the point clients most often misunderstand: the assessment isn't a formality that precedes a pre-decided package. It's the thing that decides the package. If the findings show that a single trained driver-bodyguard and one secure vehicle cover the exposure adequately, that's what we recommend — the same way we'd recommend a full close protection detail with multiple vehicles if the findings called for it. We've turned down requests for larger teams than a client's actual itinerary justified, because the assessment is meant to be honest, not to maximise the invoice. If your own instinct is closer to "do I actually need a bodyguard for this trip," that question belongs in the assessment conversation too — we've written separately about how we help clients answer it before any commitment is made.
What This Means for Planning Your Trip
If you're weighing up a visit to Morocco and unsure what level of protection makes sense, the assessment is the right starting point rather than a vehicle spec sheet or a generic package tier. It costs you an honest conversation and, where relevant, a short advance visit — and it gives you a document you can actually plan a trip around, including how it shapes your executive transport arrangements from the moment you land.