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Terrorist attacks, natural disasters, civil unrest — some business trips can be anything but business as usual.

On the morning of the fifth and final day of his business trip, Matthew Webster was in his 10th floor hotel room packing his bags, readying to check out. He glanced at the clock — 7.45am — mindful he’d arranged to meet a Finnish colleague in five minutes’ time for breakfast in the lobby of the JW Marriott hotel where they were both staying.

Neither of them made it to breakfast.

A couple of minutes later a massive explosion hit, followed by a shockwave that rippled through the building. Webster, who was in Jakarta carrying out an internal training course for his employer Nokia Siemens Networks, could see white and grey smoke from his window and people fleeing the hotel. He called his wife back in Auckland to tell her he was okay, finished packing his bags, then squeezed into the lift with 15 others to flee the building.

“When I got out of the lift that was when you knew there had been a terrorist [attack],” he recounts a few months later, back in his central Auckland offices. “I’d describe it as a war zone if I could ever imagine one. It was like walking into Mogadishu.”

There was an enormous hole blasted in one corner of the building; shattered glass lay everywhere and was still falling minutes after the explosion.

“You do run for your life, literally,” Webster says.

In the pandemonium outside, he learned the nearby Ritz-Carlton hotel, where a further three colleagues were staying, had also been bombed during the 17 July terrorist attacks. He managed to text, and then meet his Finnish colleague, and together they made their way to the local Nokia Siemens Networks office.

But the drama wasn’t over. The pair were both booked to fly out of the country that evening — Webster at 8.30pm and his colleague at 7pm. They decided to leave early for the airport, at 3pm, but a taxi trip that usually takes 40 minutes ended up taking three-and-a-half hours. The pair became increasingly worried they wouldn’t make their flights. Webster contacted the after-hours team of his company’s travel provider, Atlantic Pacific American Express (APX), to discuss the possibility of alternate flights, but in the end the pair caught their existing flights and returned home as planned.

It was the first visit to Indonesia for Webster, who travels about four times a year for work. He was aware of security measures during his stay — a series of pillars in front of the hotel to deter car bombings, for example, and metal detectors and bag checks at the entrance to the hotel and office — but he never anticipated he’d be caught in a terrorist attack.

Brendan Drury, general manager commercial at APX, says it’s human nature not to dwell too much on risk when travelling. But recent world events, such as the Jakarta bombings, the tsunami in Samoa and swine flu, illustrate how frequently potential hazards can occur when travelling. “You’ve got to be prepared that anything can happen and know what to do,” says Drury.

He recommends visiting the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade website for travel advisory information. Companies as well as the individual travelling should make it their business to understand the environment they're going into.

As Webster’s situation illustrates, a cellphone is a vital tool in an emergency. Make sure your roaming is sorted, have an updated list of emergency contacts in your address book, and if you can access the web on your phone, even better, says Drury.

And of course, ensure your travel insurance covers the gamut of scenarios including war, kidnapping and hijacking. “The fine print is really important.”

Webster has since declined a couple of opportunities to return to Indonesia for work, but says he may well return one day. The bombings targeted prominent hotels favoured by Westerners and Webster says he would probably stay at a more low-profile hotel should he return.

The seven fatalities from the 17 July attacks, including Kiwi businessman Tim Mackay, were seven too many, says Webster. “But we can’t let these people scare us into never going [to Indonesia] again,” he says. “Lives have to go on and I wouldn’t tell other people ‘don’t go’.”

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