Better at Business Travel, Better at Business
Hello. I am coming at you fast: 600 miles an hour to be exact. for I am writing high above the clouds, laptop open and fingers tapping. I am pleased to initiate this platform where experiences, tips, advice, news, views and everything to do with Business Travel - a very important part of doing business in a global environment — will unfold. I still remember my first business travel trip: the acute sense of professional and personal adventure (which has never left me), as well as the confusion and mistakes I made (which have radically improved). I find travel one of the best aspects of my life as happily, I am professional journalist and businessperson who travels frequently. I often travel alone, sometimes with business associates and occasionally with my spouse and two children and I love just about all aspects of business travel.
LOVE & HATE
Some don´t share my love of business travel of course: those crowded planes, cues, delays, tedious security and badly serviced hotels. A recent article in the International Herald Tribune stated that "41 percent of business travellers expect to take more trips in the year ahead with (little) joy." The article goes on to say that a recent survey by YPB&R on the National Business Travel Monitor indicates that "nearly one half (47 percent) of travelers do not get enough sleep on business trips, with nearly 3 in 10 (29 percent) saying that they don't sleep well when traveling. Nearly 4 in 10 (37 percent) agree that new airport security measures make business travel a big hassle."
BUSINESS TRAVEL
We will be looking at ways to make these and other hassles easier, better or transformed all together. For business is about relationships and to create or maintain them in this global environment means travel. So when we get better at travel, we get better at business. Whether you travel across the state or across the world to do business, it takes know-how to arrive fresh, neat, clean, clear-headed, organised, prepared and ready to, literally, take on the world. Once you arrive in a different place: town, city, state or country, other business challenges begin, as well as, of course, the fun and achievement.
BEST AND WORST
The best thing about Business Travel is what I learn by leaving the office and finding myself in different situations. The worst? Well that´s a tricky subject I will be exploring in future blogs. I am always learning better ways to beat jetlag, pack, negotiate airports, surf the surprises of different cultures, the challenges of unknown customs and the unexpected that rears its head. There´s appropriate hotels to find, strange customs to learn, transport to negotiate, languages to understand and different business practices to transcend and that´s even before you meet the individual or group with whom you are about to do business. Business Travel for me is a like a maze: until you have found your way to the centre, you may run into dead ends, surprises around the corner and great views from the odd tree.
BREAKFAST AT 30,000 FEET Here we go, I see the breakfast trolley making its way up the aisle — always amazes me how anticipation increases as this clunky metal box nears. Thanks for travelling with me today and I hope this is going to be a dynamic interchange of ideas, suggestions, feedback, experiences, dreams, hopes and information. Whoa, breakfast tray descending, gotta snap this baby shut and eat my muffin. Have a great day, wherever you are.
