Travel & Vacation Tips
The odd thing about business travel is to some extent, it is a mixture of what you know the very strange. The business you are going out to do you know how to do. Whether it discussing a new business project, developing a software product or attending a seminar or conference, the business part of your business trip is probably not the hardest part.
Business travel can be a productive, enjoyable and even exciting experience. The time you spend doing business in other locations expands your business reach and scope and broadens you as a person as well. Getting skilled at business travel is a solid business goal because there are skills related to business travel and being productive on the road that are impossible to learn if you don’t get out there and travel.
When you are booking a business trip, there are a lot of important decisions to be made. Obviously, the important issue is your business objectives and that everything you need so the business you will do when you arrive comes off well. So you will spend the majority of your efforts on those preparations or so you are well equipped for the trip.
Business travel can be enjoyable and a productive activity. The steps you take to assure your meetings are a success are the same you will do back at your home office. But they are made more complex by the act of “taking your show on the road”. But sometimes the challenges of business travel involve how to handle your personal affairs efficiently and safely even as you focus on your business affairs.
International business travel is rapidly becoming common to work out deals and to organize international partnerships. The economy is becoming more global as the world becomes “flat” due to increased communications and the rise of the economies around the world. No longer are businesses deals assumed to occur only on a national scale. To look at the business community as an international neighborhood is in step with the markets of this century. And that means that you could easily find yourself flying overseas to conduct the business of your company. And international travel takes some preparation.
One of thing that you notice when you travel with a seasoned business traveler is that they have habits worked out after dozens of business trips to make sure they don’t have trouble on the road. Learning to be safe in this world has to become second nature for all of us. When you learn to drive a car, its second nature to buckle your seat belt and check your blind spot when you change lanes. But early in your life as a driver, you learned the need for those precautions, sometimes the hard way.
Tipping is an odd practice primarily because it is common and expected in some professions and not at all in others. As adults, we become accustomed to tipping in the normal day in day out activity of our business and private lives.
But when it comes to tipping on a business trips, its best to think about the use of tipping as a common courtesy in light of your business trip and how it can be used to benefit you during the trip. To do that, think about the tip as a practice and why we tip. For the most part we do it because it is expected. If we think about how we tip at all, it is in the context that the tip is part of the server’s income and we want to help someone who did a good job for us.
There is very much a difference between business travel that may last a day or two or even a week compared to the life some business people must go through who travel continuously for weeks or months on end. But it is a necessity of some areas of business that professionals representing that business do stay out on the road for a very long time. These road warriors are examples of people who understand the wear and tear the road can cause on the body, mind and spirit after months of continuous travel.
One of the things that makes business travel appealing is the fact that your company covers your expenses with your expense account. Since you are on bona fide business for the sake of your business, being reimbursed for the costs of the trip is routine in the business world. Now we don’t want to abuse the expense account but if you live in a reasonable fashion on the road, you can get reimbursement for most expenses of the trip.
Business travel is tiring even for relatively short trips. The work of moving through airports, dealing with delays, handing your baggage, finding transportation at your destination city and getting to the meeting are a much greater stress than you ordinarily go through doing business at home. But when you add the problems introduced by jet lag, you face physical distress that can almost feel like you are becoming ill as your body reacts to the long distance travel.
Business travel very often involves long hours in flight to the city where your work will be done. For most business people, this is lost productivity time that can be torture if you cannot get work done in flight. How often have you said to yourself or to a coworker, “That’s all right, I will just work on that on the airplane.” That is a noble intent but circumstances inside an airplane cabin, especially in coach, can make the fulfillment of that commitment hard to accomplish.
Business travel can be rewarding, interesting, profitable and broadening for the business traveler. But there are some downsides to the life on the road especially if you must travel for business often. Besides the occasional airport delay or layover and the ever present issue of how weather affects your business trips, it is always hard to say goodbye to your family as you go out of town to accomplish the mission of your business trip.
You can tell an experienced business traveler from one who is new to the experience. It is easy for someone new to business travel to participate in excesses on the road. As business traveler, you are an adult and you are trusted by your company to conduct yourself in a businesslike fashion during your time out representing the firm. But it is easy to let the idea of an expense account and free time in a far away town get the best of you and to let yourself go as you travel.
The problem with business travel, to put it bluntly, is that you are not in your office. If you are a manager or a project leader, your need to stay in touch with your team and what is going on at all times is crucial. It would seem that this need is at cross-purposes with the idea of business travel. But with modern technology and a bit of coordination on your part, you can maintain a reasonable level of connectivity to your important projects and team activities even while driving in the rental car or waiting out a flight at the airport.
Ever since homeland security has become such an issue, moving through airport security has become more difficult. As a seasoned business traveler, this part of your business trip requires some savvy preparation and your knowledge of the system so you can sail through security at the airport as quickly as possible. But the ability to navigate airport security quickly is not something that comes easy or without some significant planning and training.
