Business Travel Jobs Demystified

All jobs that involve helping people make successful travel plans require a high degree of professionalism, but this is particularly the case with business travel jobs.

Anyone travelling will expect their agent to be excellent at their job: nobody likes to think that they may suffer problems that could have been avoided had their agent been a little more proficient!

But this not only applies in the context of problems. A private or professional traveller is extremely unlikely to be amused if they find that their plans were sub-optimal (e.g. overly expensive) simply because the travel agent didn't really know their trade. So, 'getting it right' and providing an exemplary service is important if you work in a travel agency. Yet in the case of corporate planning, it becomes potentially even more complicated and your customers may well be considerably more demanding.

What makes corporate travel different to recreational travel?

• Business travellers need to depart at their convenience and in line with the demands of their business, meaning that they may be very reluctant to fit in with any plans that do not conform to their needs. Compromise may sometimes be impossible for them to contemplate.

• Clients may have multiple requirements that involve them travelling around the globe, stopping and changing flights regularly - that can be a major logistical and coordination effort for the travel agent.

• Clients may need to depart at short notice and they will expect a fast, efficient and above all, knowledgeable, service.

• Sometimes vast sums of money may depend on the business traveller being somewhere at a specific date and time - if things go wrong, they may be very pointed in demanding an explanation and an alternative from their agent.

How does this affect business travel jobs?

There are some agents that specialise in providing dedicated services to corporate clients. Some other agents may offer general travel agency services but also have a dedicated department/office/team to cope with the specific challenges presented by business travellers.

Typically, agents tend to put more experienced and knowledgeable employees into their business operations, although that may not always be the case and some may offer training opportunities for beginners. There are City and Guild (plus other) qualifications in many aspects of travel and leisure, and some of these may offer specific modules or courses on business travel.

If you are interested in business travel jobs specifically but lack any previous travel agent experience, it may be advisable to consider finding a position in an agency to learn the basics of the trade, then seek further qualifications and the opportunity to move into the business field. If you would like to search for business travel jobs directly as a trainee, and without previous travel agent experience, you may find this difficult unless you can show a relevant higher academic qualification.

The route to take towards business travel jobs will depend on a number of things, such as your experience, qualifications and perhaps your overall financial position in terms of whether you can support yourself through academic studies on either a full or part-time basis.

Business Travelers - Use the Loyalty Programs For Your Benefit

Many people abhor traveling for business, at least when they have to do it frequently. Others know the benefits and actually enjoy frequent business travel. Those benefits include free personal travel and a more luxurious business travel experience.

There are a lot of benefits when one travels frequently for business and takes advantage of the loyalty programs like the frequent flyer programs. The most highlighted benefit is free travel. With enough points or miles one can fly for free, stay for free, and even get a free car rental. And because they accumulate so many miles, the frequent business travelers can fly when they want and take people with them. However, there are plenty of other perks to being a road warrior.

One of the primary perks of being a frequent flyer is the elite status that comes with being a loyal and frequent customer of the hotels and airlines. There is free and often unexpected upgrades. For the hotels that could mean a free suite rather than a standard room. For the airlines that would mean being upgraded to business or first-class seating for a flight. Then there are complimentary things the hotels and airlines do to make travel easier for their preferred customers. The hotels have quick check-in for loyalty members and often access to lounge areas on the concierge floor for status members. The airlines have quick check-in for members also and allow elite status members to board the airplane first. Then there are the small things like maybe a free snack or refreshment in the hotel room when one arrives. Or a free drink on the plane if one is not upgraded to first-class. It is these perks that make traveling so much easier when on the road constantly.

Frequent club members also get access to a dedicated toll-free number for reservations, which is nice during a busy season that one can get a live person reasonably quickly. As one's status level increases that dedicated service improves. The highest elite levels get their own line with perks available for the asking. Also increasing with the higher elite levels is bonus points and miles. Typically, the highest elite levels get an additional twenty-five percent bonus to the miles or points for each trip or stay. This helps the frequent business traveler get more points or miles for a from each trip.

These perks are so nice and welcomed by the frequent business traveler that they do become fanatics about getting miles or points. They also become experts on their particular programs. Every business traveler needs to join their airline or hotel's loyalty program to start enjoying the free benefits.

Business Travel in Taipei

Business Travel Getting In and Out Easily in Taipei

Many people find it so excited when going abroad to have their first business travel thinking about having flying in business class, Benz waiting at airport arrival hall for pickup, staying in the 5 stars hotel and dinning in full course fine dining restaurant, and etc. But the days are gone for luxuries corporate travel budget. We are now back to square one with tight budget travel with kind of many restriction and lengthy guidelines to follow. No worries, here with years of business travel experience in Asia, the author can provide you the inside out information on getting around like local in Asia cities. Let's start with Taipei as the 1st stop of your business travel destination.

Pre-Departure Planning - Hotel Searching and Customer Location Identification

It is always very important to do some homework before you board your plane at your homeland airport, since you may not know what things will went wrong when you arrive at your destination. However, please do not worry so much as Taipei people English proficiency is high enough to help you.

Even you are working in a top multi national companies but still you need to find out where the corporate prefer hotel located whether is it near to customer site or very far. Since by understanding the locations of each customer site it helps a lot in planning the meeting time and arranging transportation to get there.

For big corporate traveler working in HP, Dell, Intel, GE, etc, usually they have corporate rate with Taipei Sheraton Hotel, Taipei Sherwood Hotel, Taipei Grand Hyatt, Shangri-la Taipei, Westin Taipei, Taipei Farmosa Hotel, Yu Shan Hotel and other 5 star hotel. What about for people that with own business or work in small corporate? It is too luxurious staying in such world class hotel sometimes it is really unnecessary. You can try out some business hotel which are mainly located in Chong Xiao East Road, Taipei Main Station, Ming Sheng East Road, Ming Quan East Road, etc. These business hotels are ranging from NT$1800-NT$2500 (tax included) including breakfast, one of the author prefer is Delight Hotel Taipei which is so convenient which the Zhong Shan Guo Zhong MRT is just 5 minutes walk and same goes to the 7-11 convenient store.

You need to understand where is your customer site as whether is it in Taipei city or in Taipei Prefecture. Customers sites are around Neihu, Shichi, Chonghe, Banqiao, Tucheng and some even as far as in Xinchu. If your customer is in Chonghe, Tucheng, and Banqian region, stay in Chonghe is a better option. A good hotel with reasonal price around NT$3200 (tax included) is Fourpoints Sheraton Hotel Chunghe, convenient store is just 10 steps away at the left hand side from hotel entrance.

Transportation and Access Information

It is not wise to get a hotel pickup at airport, as it is always cost few hundred NT dollars more than Taxi and sometimes even a thousands dollar NT more than pre-arrange private service car that a lot of MNC applied which we called it "MiMi" car (usually is Toyota Camry 2.4L version, not too bad at all!). Hotel pickup cost range of NT$1900-NT$3000 depends on what type of limousine you ordered; taxi cost about NT$1100 to Taipei city; "MiMi" car cost about NT$800 to inner city of Taipei. If you are not rush, try the shuttle bus cost about NT$110-NT$150, only 10% of what you paid for taxi! It takes about an hour to reach Taipei city. Just find out your hotel address and show to the lady at the bus ticket counter, she will let you know which bus to take. Just ensure you counter check with bus driver asking him when approaching your stop, please remind you to get off. No worries, once you are in the Taipei city, can get taxi easily and getting around will cost little only within NT$100-NT$250.

Once you are in the city after check-in, you can travel around using the subway or MRT which is so convenient and easy to go anyway. So it is important to find a hotel which is nearer to MRT station as it will help you save a lot of your transportation fees. Since MRT cost so little from NT$20 onwards, with EasyCard you will have 40% discount! Just get one at the subway ticket counter.

Business Dinning and Personal Dinning Sharing

Do you know business travel does not mean you only suppose to have your meals in 5 start restaurant, you too can have the same quality of foods in a lot of local restaurant or even at night market. Save you some dollars for raining days use. Business dinning can have it in any Taipei city restaurant which you can easily find it. Here which the author want to share more is the night market foods which foreign business traveler should try out after a whole day of tiring business meetings. Check out Shiling night market just board the MRT at any station along the red color subway line and stop at Jiantan station. Don't straight go after the food court at Shiling market, instead go into the night market place and check out the small hawker stores beside the road, some really cool delicious foods like fried chicken drumstick, jelly drink, ice cream rap in thin flour with peanuts, crab meat soup and many more. One should not miss is the ice shop inside one of the valley beside main street of Shiling night market, selling all sort of milky shredded ice with many different kinds of toppings. Try out the strawberry or mango toppings, really delicious! Business travel can be fun, too!

Almond Hazel is an experience business and leisure traveler in Asia main cities. The author has been working in multiple multi national companies (MNC) as well as some start up business from united states and locals in Asia region, some business relocation experience in Taiwan, Japan, China, and South East Asia countries for the past 15 years. Beside having business travels, the author is also a leisure traveler, and has been to many Asia countries, US and Europe for vacation. Throughout this vast travel experience the author can share a lot of travel tips to all. Further more the author speaks English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Bahasa Melayu and Japanese, so this help to find out more local authentic foods and guides from exchanging conversation with local people.

Travel Agencies - For a Comfortable Business Travel

There are a lot of things that one has to take care of while going on for a business trip to a foreign destination, more so when it is one's first business travel. To make it convenient and comfortable, it is better that one hires the services of a travel agency. They will take care of all your requirements. There are a large number of travelling agencies in Australia who can fulfil all your travelling needs.

Some of the benefits of hiring travel agencies for the business trips are discussed below.

Since business trips are very different from the leisurely trips these need more meticulous planning and execution. These are more serious in nature and any loophole in the planning may lead to huge losses. Taking care of both the business deal and the business travelling details is not easy for a person. Therefore it is better to hire a travelling agency which understands these things and therefore give utmost attention to each detail.

These travelling agencies will look into all the details of your business trip and plan accordingly, right from the start of your journey to the last moment of your stay as well as getting back to your home destination.

For people who travel frequently for business purposes must go for travelling agencies specializing in the business tours. These agencies have a lot of experience in this field. They can provide you the best of services at very low rates.

From business air travel booking, hotel booking to meeting arrangements, everything is done by the travelling agency.

These agencies have a lot of experience in handling these business trips and therefore know each and every requirement of a business trip. This is the reason why you can rely on their services.

These agencies understand that businessmen travel frequently on business trips. Therefore to attract more travellers they give discounts on frequent basis. They have a lot of alluring business tour packages to suit the needs of all types of business travellers. These packages help you save a lot of your money but this does not mean that they compromise on services. These discounted packages provide you affordable business tickets, comfortable stay, fine dining options and the best arrangements for meetings and conferences.

You can also take your family along with you on the business trips. These travelling agencies can include all the facilities for the family members also. So your business trip can easily be turned into a family vacation.

They can in fact provide you with packages which have the business trip combined with sight seeing. After your work for the day is over you can indulge in a lot of pleasure activities also. The sight seeing will include visits to all the popular attractions of that place. There are many travelling agencies which provide these two in one services. There is always a lot of ample time between business meetings and work. This time can easily be utilized for sight seeing and pleasure activities.

Hiring the services of these travelling agencies will help you save a lot of your time, money and energy and you will have a comfortable trip without a doubt.

The Upside to Business Travel

Many people abhor traveling for business, while some only hate it when they are consistently on the road as a road warrior. They frequently miss home, having their own familiar place to stay, and home cooking. Still, there are a number of tips for the business traveler that can make the best of traveling for business.

Free Fun Travel

Traveling for business can also help increase traveling for pleasure. While flying, staying at hotels, and renting cars one can be collecting loyalty points for future use. This means that one can be traveling for fun with the rewards of their business travel. It is a liberating feeling to walk to an airline counter and cash in some points for a trip to anywhere in the world- Vegas for the weekend or take someone special to Paris.

Travel Perks

Being a frequent traveler with the loyalty programs will have you an established elite traveler in no time. Pay attention to the requirements and do what you can to get elite status as soon as you can. The perks are tremendous with free and sometimes unexpected upgrades. Preference in the check-in lines will make a huge difference when you are pressed for time or dog tired at the end of the day. Preference in check-in/check-out times will be a perk you will use often.

Be In The Now

Every major town will have its unique flavor and will have some tourist must sees. See them when you have down time. When you are constantly on the road it will seem enticing to stay in a hotel room and relax to some TV, but when you do this day after day, town after town no wonder burn-out settles in. Get out and explore, get to know the town, it will undoubtedly help your business in that town to know more about it. Try the specialty foods of the area, stay away from national chains. And if you do find that you travel the same cities consistently, then make it your town. Find some favorite places to eat and entertain yourself, then you can actually look forward to visiting again.

Being able to travel for business is a wonderful opportunity and should not be seen as a burden. Changing of the attitude may be as simple as looking to the pluses and not focusing on the negatives of frequent travel.

Business Travel Tips For The Avid Business Traveler

Companies everywhere are finding they need to travel more if they want to meet new customers and to capture new sources of business; the Internet has ensured that even tiny companies can have a customer base that is truly global! However, anyone who has spent a great deal of their time traveling for their business will tell you just how tiring it can be. There are some things you can do to reduce the amount of stress and fatigue that occurs and some interesting business travel tips and information that is supplied in this article.

Sometimes for instance, baggage goes missing; that is an unfortunate fact of travel and whilst it is distressing enough on a family holiday, on a business trip it can be disastrous. An easy remedy to this is to pack as much as possible that you absolutely must have for you meeting, in your hand luggage.

This means that even if your main luggage is lost your trip does not have to be wasted; your meeting can still take place despite any inconvenience that has been caused. As far as your main luggage is concerned, make sure you only pack just enough for the trip and this is probably the most useful business travel tip to bear in mind.

If you only take enough business clothes for the trip and then all that is left is some casual wear for the evenings, just two pairs of shoes, one casual, and one pair should be enough. All that is left once this is done is to include your toiletries and other business documentation that may be of use.

A way to save space and possibly take a smaller bag plus reduce any creases is to roll clothing up which takes up less room and a business travel tip well worth noting. To go one step further, if you want to ensure that even if food or drink are spilled on your clothes you won't need them laundered; use dark colors which are also handy because creases don't show as much.

If you are delayed for any reason then knowing you can freshen up prior to the meeting without the need for a shower can be a lifesaver, this is where those travel wipes come in very useful. If you only intend to be away for a couple of days, a normal charge for a cell phone and other electronic equipment may be enough but if the trip is longer you may need to take chargers with you.

Many business travelers now use the traveling time to do as much work as possible which then allows them some personal time to themselves after work which in turn reduces stress. Just plan ahead for your business travel using this guide and you will be in a position where whatever happens it will not affect your trip and once you have done this often enough it will all become second nature to you.

Business travel does not have to be all work and by using the business travel tips shown here, there should be time for rest and relaxation too.

How Companies Can Cut Costs on Business Travel

With countries just starting to get over the economic downturn that affected the world in 2009, companies that have survived are always on the look out for ways to cut costs. Business travel is one of the areas that take up a large amount of company spending. It is true that travel is necessary for businesses whether it is within the country or abroad. However there are ways to reduce on the costs of business travel and thus save your company money.

1. Use of technology. With modern technology now available like web conference and video calling, it may no longer be necessary to travel thousands of miles and spend thousands of dollars in order to attend a conference or be in the same geographically location with the person or people you are doing business with.

2. Use of one credit card to buy company travel. One major benefit of doing this is that the company will accumulate frequent flyer miles from different airlines and even from hotels which will eventually translate into various awards, like upgrades on the class of travel by an airline, free air tickets, free hotel accommodation and even airport transfers which may be a saving for the company.

3. Negotiate with airlines and hotels for special rates. It is surprising how many companies do not do this and yet the amount of money saved in business travel can be enormous if a company negotiated preferential rates with airlines and hotels many of whom are very ready to provide this if it will mean the organisation patronising their services.

4. Have a company travel policy. Lack of a company policy on travel can lead to unnecessary travel abroad, including excessive spending on air travel and hotel accommodation. A company should have strict policies on when travel can be undertaken and by whom and staff members should be made aware of these policies. Also there should be accountability for any business travel done including reason for travel, class of travel, hotels stayed in and number of days spent on business travel.

5. If your company uses a travel management company to handle its travel and hotel bookings, it is important that they are aware of your company's travel policy and its desire to minimise on travel costs. You should use a travel management company that is willing to work with you in minimising these costs. If possible compare the rates of several travel management companies to determine if you are getting the best rates available in the market. This comparison should be done on a regular basis. Also from time to time, you should ask your travel management company to issue you with reports of all the travel done by your company to help you monitor and know how much you are spending on travel.

Simple Tips For Business Travel

Business travel has become more and more necessary as the globe becomes a smaller place. Doing business with people from different cities, states, countries and even continents is now a normal occurrence and will continue to be this way moving forward. As a result of this growth in interaction by people of diverse cultures it has become more necessary for more people to travel for business.

Traveling for business however can be a stressful experience as although the business world is based on deadlines and strict schedules traveling does not usually adhere to the same strictness. It is therefore not uncommon to miss or be late for meetings due to delays or other travel related complications. These are the unavoidable circumstances that crop up every now and again; we can however take every precaution to ensure a stress free successful business trip. The following tips could aid every business traveler have a pleasurable travel experience that may enable for positive mindset for negotiations or business dealings overall.

One of the choices business people have to make is whether or not to fly to a particular destination. The aspects to consider when making this decision include cost and fatigue factor. It may be much more economical to drive to a certain location however the time spent as well as the fatigue may end up being more costly in the long run.

If flying is the mode of choice then it is important to weigh the options with regard to price and quality of service. Many business people are quick to choose the smaller cheaper airline not realizing that the low costs come at a cost of worse customer service in case of delays or other problems. Smaller airlines are also less likely to be as professional and on time as the larger airlines due to financial constraints.

Choosing an airline that is reliable and has adequate customer service in case of a problem is essential for the business traveler. If in a job that requires a lot of traveling then it may be advisable to sign up to a frequent flyer program. Joining a frequent flyer program will allow for extra savings and even free trips if the miles add up.

There are a number of ways to pay for tickets however the best is definitely by credit card. Paying by credit card ensures that you are not only protected if anything goes wrong but also leaves a solid paper trail that can be used to solicit compensation from the organization.

Finally there are a number of other items to consider as a business traveler. Preparation for the entire journey should be done extensively to allow for stress free travel. Take into consideration factors such as clothing (carrying an extra suit in hand luggage advisable), provision for security at airports (knowing the rules and procedures in advance helps).