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International Business Travel, Management of Global Business Travel

International Business Travel

8 min
Posted: 26 November 2021
International business travel

For many businesses across the United States, commerce is a global activity and with an international economy comes the challenge of doing businesses in other countries around the world.

Global travel is not without its risk and the coronavirus pandemic has shown that from a business perspective, organizing travel and ensuring the safety of your staff has raised a whole new set of challenges and issues, many of which not all businesses were prepared for.

As global business travel starts to increase again, both employees and businesses are looking at ways that they can still travel internationally for business, whilst maintaining safety and ensuring that any fast-moving changes and situations are managed effectively and easily without incurring the cost of having to rebook or cancel at short notice.

International Business Travel Risks

When it comes to traveling internationally for business, just like with leisure travel, it isn't without some potential risk. While the majority of business travel is carried out without a hitch it's always a good idea to be prepared for the worst.

Some of the travel risks that travelers need to watch out for include staying safe in unfamiliar locations, keeping travel documents secure and maintaining health, which has become paramount in recent times.

Other risks that affect international business travel are last minute changes to a person's schedule, such as cancellations and problems with bookings. Modern business travelers need to have a set of dynamic policies and tools they can rely on to ensure that they can quickly adapt to any challenges that arise.

The good news is, there are plenty of things a business can do to insulate itself from issues with international travel and to help maintain the health and safety of their employees when traveling on behalf of their organization.

One of the key improvements a business can make to their business travel program to help mitigate the majority of these potential travel problems is to use an effective travel policy.

How International Business Travelers Can Protect Themselves

When traveling abroad it's always a good idea to have a travel insurance policy to cover potential issues. As a business traveler, your personal travel insurance policy might cover you for business trips, but it's worth double-checking the policy with your provider prior to travel to avoid expensive mistakes. The company you work for might also cover you under a business travel insurance scheme, but you should again check with your employer to find out what is, and what isn't covered. For example, it's never advisable to travel without a health care policy in case of illness or accident.

It's also a good idea to familiarize yourself with the location of the nearest U.S. embassies so that if the worst happens and you lose important documents like your passport, you'll know where to go to resolve the issue.

Although employees may take a pragmatic approach to traveling safety, employers have a duty of care to their personnel, which means as a company you might be looking at ways to keep your employees safe when they're out traveling for your business. Ultimately, the best way this can be achieved is by implementing a comprehensive travel risk management program and by creating travel policies to maintain travel compliance and ensure traveler safety.

Coronavirus Pandemic's Impact on Global Corporate Travel

Over the last few years, the Covid-19 pandemic has caused huge problems traveling internationally. Even at a domestic level, the road warriors who travel around visiting customers and businesses across the U.S. have found that state to state, U.S. travel still has its own unique restrictions and challenges to deal with.

For business travelers looking to travel to a foreign country in many locations, travel restrictions have been put in place to stop unnecessary travel. As the coronavirus vaccine has been rolled out, some of these travel restrictions have started to lift and travel plans are starting to be made again.

When it comes to international business travel, it's always a good idea to check the status of the country that you're going to, so you can ensure that you can travel by meeting any restrictions that are in place. The Egencia® Travel Advisor tool can quickly and easily identify issues in various locations around the world. In addition, you can find travel advisories for trips during COVID-19, including regulations for destinations, and safety and health guidelines.

Benefits of International Business Travel

Even though business travel has reduced over the last few years, and with the targets to reduce carbon emissions, many businesses are looking at ways to reduce expensive (and emission producing) business trips where possible. However, while some business meetings can be held via video conferencing services, it can be difficult or impossible to carry out some business functions virtually. Often, you just have to be there!

There are a number of benefits of face-to-face meetings with colleagues or clients, and these include:

Being able to read body language. It can be difficult to pick up on the non-verbal cues when speaking virtually. Humans have the ability to pick up on subtle micro expressions that people give off, and adapt accordingly. This can help with competitiveness and closing deals that might otherwise be lost if those micro expressions are not picked up on - which is hard to do virtually!

Building relationships. Many customers prefer face-to-face meetings as business often isn't just about what you can offer as an organization but also about relationships and finding people and corporate philosophies that are in synergy together. This is much easier to do in person, where small talk and more natural interactions can occur between people and teams.

Improve focus and concentration. When in a face-to-face meeting you tend to have the full attention of the people that you are speaking to. When on a video call, you might find that people in the meeting aren't paying as much attention. They could be looking at social media, answering emails and not being fully engaged. In a face-to-face meeting the likelihood of this happening is significantly reduced.

Easier to deal with different time zones. International business can take place across lots of different time zones. When trying to organize a call or video meeting, it can mean that someone somewhere, will have to accommodate an out-of-hours calendar invite that might come at a very inconvenient time. For global organizations this can mean that someone will have to have a call or meeting very early in the morning, or very late at night. This can reduce productivity and effectiveness if people are tired. This can also mean that people are keener to get the meeting over and done with faster, so meetings can be rushed.

A face-to-face meeting means time zones won't matter because everyone will be one the same schedule. Of course, an international flight can introduce the dreaded jet lag, but this can be compensated for by proper scheduling of the flight and adequate rest.

For the individual business traveler, there are also benefits to be had from traveling internationally. For instance, it can make a job more interesting and engaging as you get to explore and see new cultures and locations.

International travel can make a job more varied, as you'll often experience new things, activities and meeting new people. For many employees this is the sort of thing they look for in a role, and it can make for a happier employee. When the employee is restricted to a conference phone call or video meeting, often from their own homes or satellite office, the day-to-day can become boring. International travel is a way to keep employees engaged, happy and most importantly efficient and effective.

With the ability to use laptops and mobile computing devices when traveling and when using air travel, there's a lot less employee downtime, so in many cases an employee can still carry out work when on a long-haul flight.

International Business Travel Management

Some companies leave the booking of international travel to the employees to handle, but this is not always the best use of their time, nor is it the most cost-effective way to travel.

That's why many companies use a travel management company such as Egencia to simplify and streamline business travel. Egencia help businesses manage travel risk and help to ensure traveler wellbeing no matter where they travel to. Egencia's travel management solutions also help support your business and plan for the future.

You can set up travel policies for your employees and you can keep in contact with your team globally to keep them informed and ensure their safety when out on business using our travel risk management tools and services.

Future of International Business Travel

When it comes to international business trips, the future holds interesting challenges for travel managers. The coronavirus pandemic has shown that a dynamic approach to business travel is needed. This can be hard to maintain when managing your own business travel program. This is why many companies turn to Egencia to help support their business travel program.

In addition to the need for more dynamic business travel solutions, many organizations are looking for ways to reduce their carbon impact on the environment and areas such as business travel, and especially international business travel are under the spotlight as this is an area where savings can be made. This is where Egencia's travel policy solutions can help, from ensuring only direct flights are booked, but also by ensuring travel options that are environmentally friendly are used more often.

So, whether you're looking for dynamic business travel solutions, need help setting up travel policies for your employees, or want to reduce your carbon footprint, we can help you fine tune your International travel. Visit Egencia.com to find out how we can make your global travel run smoothly.

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