The businesses that were used to traveling before the pandemic will have missed the opportunity for face-to-face contact that business trips entail. It’s been a long pandemic, and for these businesses it has felt particularly difficult. Happily, travel rules are changing for the better, which means that you and your team will soon be able to make use of new freedoms to get yourselves on a plane to meet customers, clients and partners. Here’s how you’ll make those trips perfect, form start to finish.
Itinerary
Getting your itinerary right on a business trip can be the difference between winning contracts and going home empty-handed. Most businesses will feel the need to maximize their time in a foreign land, with back-to-back meetings and workshops throughout their work trip. But in truth, your exhausted employees are likely to find a rigorous routine testing, and may be well off their best if you plan for long, 12-hour days.
Instead, pack your itinerary with both business meetings and more informal time, when members of your team will be able to explore, take short trips, or even just grab a coffee with a member of a client’s team. These informal moments, off the record and laid-back, can help you build social bonds that you’ll be able to take back into the board room.
Organization
Other than your itinerary, it’s important you’re able to streamline your business trip so there are no delays and no unpleasant surprises at any point of your journey. You can do this with the help of corporate travel management firms, which organize your business travel for you while you focus on the business side of your travel.
These firms are motivated to get you into the most appropriate hotels, to find you the ideal flights, and to ensure that your team are comfortable and happy throughout your trip. They’ll even take care of all those added pandemic stresses, such as providing notes on your destination country’s restrictions, and whether you’ll need to take a COVID-19 test before boarding your flights.
Objectives
Finally, no business trip would be complete without your team being well aware of their objectives as you head out. You’ll know what your best-case and worst-case scenarios might be, and where you want to draw negotiation red lines. You’ll be aware of the people you most want to meet, and the one-to-ones you’re most keen to establish.
All of this will help bring focus to your team as you head abroad and, to some extent, into the unknown. It’s exciting: your team’s on a mission to bring something home for your business, and preparing what your strategy’s going to be beforehand is a fundamental part of that. So, this final tip is to get your objectives organized and shared throughout your team, so that everyone’s on the same page for your crucial meetings.
Make your business trips in 2022 productive, enjoyable and stress-free with these three tips –designed to help firms get the most out of their business trips next year.
