How to make the most of an overseas business trip

When you’re planning a business trip, what are the key areas you need to focus on to do your best to ensure the trip is a success?

There’s no guarantee any trip will go to plan, as so many things are beyond your control. This is why it’s essential to make sure you organise the things that are within your control as good as possible. Like with any trip, whether it be leisure or business, the well planned ones have the better chance of being successful.

The main key things to plan in advance are travel, accommodation, and visas (if overseas). These are the obvious points to look out for. But there are so many other things you can research and plan in advance to ensure your trip is as successful as possible. Here we take a look at some of them.

Expenses

It might not be an obvious thing to research, but if you’re entitled to claim expenses back, it could be well worth your while to thoroughly research what you can and can’t claim for before you go. Doing this could save you a lot of money, as you can plan your trip in a way that ensures pretty much everything you spend money on falls into the category of things you can claim for.

If you’re going on a trip abroad on behalf of your employer, the last thing you want to be doing is forking out a load of cash from your own pocket. A bit of thorough research or bottom up budgeting can save you money, and mean you won’t only have an enjoyable trip, but also an extremely cheap one.

Electrical Outputs

Another thing you should do your research on is electrical outputs in the country you’re visiting. Researching a country’s electrical output is now as important as ever, with such high importance placed on mobile devices (a completely 21st century version of the electrical output problem). If you’re on a business trip, the last thing you need to be doing is arriving in your hotel room late at night only to discover you can’t charge your mobile and electrical devices as you don’t have the correct travel adapters.

It’s not a huge problem, as you can pop out and buy them when you arrive. But if you arrive at an unsociable hour, and can’t get anything, and then are unreachable the next morning, you are going to look very unreliable. Sounds basic, and that’s because it is. So you don’t want to fall foul of it.

Planning your itinerary

Another obvious sounding thing you can do to help your trip be a success is to organise an itinerary. Your work commitments will no doubt be prepared by the company sending you on your trip. But what about your spare time?

There’s nothing that says you can’t enjoy yourself when you’re not working on the trip. So why not plan an itinerary that allows you to make the most of your downtime on your business trip? That way you can get the best of both worlds. Yes, you’ve been working. But you might come home feeling like you’ve actually had a small mini break.