7 Best Executive Travel Tips
Plan Around Your Absence
Once you have your business travel scheduled, you will need to accommodate your in-office schedule. You may miss some important meetings at your home base. If you are crucial to those meetings, you may either have to reschedule them or convert them to virtual meetings or calls. If you have any projects or assignments due during your period away, plan accordingly. Delegate any tasks you may have to others in your absence if the need arises. Any issue that may come up before your travel can be brought to your attention and squared away, as well.
Turn on ‘Out-of-Office’ Email
Always set your out-of-office email. This applies even if you expect to check and respond to emails while away. That way, colleagues will know you may be temporarily indisposed due to traveling or meetings and there may be a delay in responding. You also need to take into consideration, especially with international travel, the time zone delays and varying Wi-Fi strengths of foreign countries that may affect your response time.
Don’t forget to leave the contact information for a person at your home base to call on in case of emergency. Give your emergency contact person a heads-up to know their role and provide them with your itinerary.
Check All Travel Details
The day before your business trip is a good time to do a review of your itinerary. Check and confirm the following details:
- All transportation details including flights, ground transportation, etc.
- Hotel reservation
- A review of all your business meetings: the who, where, and what
Pack Your Essentials
When traveling for business, just like anytime else, there is always the chance of a lost bag. It is very important to carry your personal essentials — things you cannot live without — in your carry-on bag. This includes items such as prescription medication, identification, cell phone chargers, and even your toothbrush. Make sure to have those everyday things that you know you need and should always be easily accessible at all times.
Practice Wellness
Traveling around for business can be difficult and exhausting. It is easy to get so involved in your work schedule that you neglect your personal well-being. Add in the fact of the food choices available in airports and lack of exercise can lead to traveler fatigue and burnout. It has been proven that when business travelers practice wellness routines, it leads to overall better work performance, improved physical health, and a better work/life balance.
In the past few years, there has been an increase in wellness travel worldwide. Corporate travel planners have taken notice of this trend, and they are planning wellness retreats and excursions as part of bleisure trips for corporate travelers.
Keep Track of All Expenses
While on your corporate trip, you will be spending money on various goods and services. You may also be using a combination of a corporate card and cash, depending on the goods or service needed. Don’t fall behind when it comes to tracking your business travel expenses. You don’t want to have to frantically enter dozens of receipts and reconcile everything last minute. A good idea is to enter all your daily receipts into a spreadsheet, or if your company uses a corporate travel booking tool to track expenses, enter them there. A good time to do this is perhaps between meetings, or any other quiet time you may have on your trip such as before going to bed.
Review Your Trip Every Night
Another good rule for effective business travel is to do a quick review of your day’ s schedule and activity. Think about your meetings, and what you did that worked and what didn’t. Try to be a little objective and look at it from the outside. For instance, if you had a meeting that went very well, list the points of what went correctly so you can evaluate the meeting’s success. Then, when it comes time to follow up on the meeting, you can use what you learned to take the next course of action.
Traveler’s Q can assist you with all your international corporate travel needs. Our travel advisors have many corporate travel tips that can assist your business into the future of corporate travel – contact us today.
