Tips for Business Travellers

Traveling on business can be stressful and expensive, particularly for SME travellers. Here are some tips for business travellers to make life easier.

The Daily Telegraph has published a couple of good articles that provide tips for business travellers. However, please be aware that they are sponsored stories. That said the information is worthwhile. We have added some thoughts of our own and a bit about our services.

“Five must-have apps for frequent flyers” describes some Apps that are really useful even if you are not a frequent flyer.

Gate Guru – Informs you as to the location of your gate, walking times to it and any gate changes. Details of shops and other services are also covered.

Maplets – Allows you to down load airport, subway maps, rail and bus routes for when you lose an Internet connection.

mileBlaster – Tracks all your frequent flyer accounts. Unfortunately it is no longer available!

JetRadar – Reviews price comparison sites to get the best deal on flights.

Seat Alerts – Shows you the best seats on your flight. If you have missed them, it monitors the seat allocation and let you know when a better seat become available.

Services

“Smart travel tech for SMEs” is the second article. It covers five areas where technology can help ease the stress and limit the costs.

1. Being able to stay in touch

This describes Unified communications as a Service (UcaaS). The article majors on Microsoft’s Lync, Other services are available and the link provides more information on the technology.

2. Consistent Wi-Fi

This section is about Wi-Fi service amalgamators and uses iPass as an example. There are other providers such as The Cloud that operates in the UK and Germany. BT also has an international Wi-Fi offering that covers most of Europe, the USA and South Africa. The costs vary so do your research.

3. On-the-road payments

Taking credit card payments if you were a start-up, a tradesman or a mobile business used not to be possible. New services like Barclaycard Anywhere uses a card reader that connects to a smartphone. So SMEs can now take on-the-spot-payments. This type of service is called mPOS. We have looked, but the other UK banks appear to be keeping their mPOS services under wraps, if they have them. HSBC also have a service called Paym for making mobile payments.

4. Tech-ready hotels

Research conducted by HRS a hotel solutions provider appears to indicate that business travelers want more than free Wi-Fi. Apparently they also want free use of a tablet or a laptop! However, the Crowne Plaza offers secure wireless printing in-room and Marriott offers a range of services in their business centres. The message? Determine what you will need whilst traveling and check to see what the hotel offers before booking.

5. Reduction in airport downtime

A lot of time is wasted at the airport. Essentially look for innovations like printable luggage tags, self-service check-in & bag drop, and online check-in. JetBlue and Virgin Atlantic started accepting boarding passes on mobiles and smartwatches, now almost all airlines do.  Some even allow multiple electronic boarding passes on a singe device.

Security

Security is important whilst traveling.  The Telegraph article Top five apps to increase security in business tackles this issue and is well worth the read.

Finally, securing your mobile phone is also an important area. Another article in the Daily Telegraph entitled Seven ways to avoid being hacked. provides advice that will surprise many. I recommend that you read it, particularly if you use, or intend to use, Cloud-based computing like GHG Insight.  That is not to say that Cloud Computing is inherently more at risk than internal or on-premises systems. It is just that some of the risks are different.

This post has links to other useful travel information and is worth checking out. Just remember the point about these being sponsored stories.  Please note that I am not plugging the Daily Telegraph.  It is just that they have published a series of relevant articles.  Thanks for reading this post and I hope that you have enjoyed our tips for business travelers.

Author: Glen Winkfield