Think the Trip – 10 Hot Travel Tips!
Is your day full of organising travel or are you new to the frustrations a travelling boss can bring. PA, Travel Organiser and DeskDemon user Gillian Thomas provides 10 Hot Tips on how to make life easier for you and your boss.
By – Gillian Thomas
Think The Trip! Work through every stage in your boss's journey as if you were doing it yourself, from the minute he leaves the office or home to the time he arrives at his hotel or first meeting. What you can do at each stage to make life easier for him and make sure the whole trip runs smoothly?- Adopt a 'what if' scenario at every stage of the journey and provide a Plan B. What if your boss gets comes out into the arrivals hall, it's midnight in Miami, and there's no sign of his car to pick him up? Does your itinerary show the mobile number of the driver to collect him or the car company to pick him up? Are these numbers all active out of normal working hours?
- Get to know all the facilities hotels, airlines and train companies offer business traveller. Look out for news which could make a difference to the way your boss travels next time, or which could save your company money.
- Develop a good working relationship with the people who help you out with bookings. When you do have an emergency, they'll be far more likely to help you out.
- Check, check and check the itinerary over. Make it easy to read at speed!
- Be prepared for unexpected changes! Have you ever been caught coming in late to the office after a heavy night out (because you thought the boss would be safely on a long haul flight), only to discover that his trip had been cancelled at the last minute and he was, in fact, in his office?
- Where can you apply the personal touch to the trip to make the journey more relaxing? If your boss is a woman, can you alert the hotel to the fact that she may not want a room on the ground floor? If your boss stays very regularly in one hotel, does he have a room he prefers to stay in, or a floor?
- Look for ways to save your boss time and money as you plan the itinerary, but don't do it so cheaply that your boss arrives frazzled and fraught. He needs to arrive in such a way as to present the right sort of image for your organisation (and himself).
- Can your boss combine his trip to one client to catch up with a long lost friend in the city or another client he hasn't seen recently? Think whether your boss can add business or personal value to a trip.
- If your boss is transferring between airport terminals, allow plenty of time, especially in large airports where it can take a while to get from one to another. Give your boss details of later flights on his itinerary, in case he should miss the one he is booked on. At least then he'll know how long he'll have to wait in a bar in Boston for the next flight home...
