How often do you travel for business? This could mean attending a one off meeting where Skype just wouldn’t cut it. Or visiting a three day conference. Even seconding to another location for six months. From the occasional to the regular business traveller, well-being is always important. But how do you balance luxury and cost? What elements of business travel are key to prioritise? And what impact can these things have upon your business performance?
Why Travel?
In a competitive commercial environment, there are always predictions that frequency of business travel will decrease in favour of virtual solutions. However, contrary to this, the business travel industry remains buoyant. Indeed, as organisations are becoming more global than ever before, the distances that executives travel is on the up. This goes to demonstrate that in many instances a physical presence is key for business development and success. So for pitches, training and deal making it is vital that those undertaking the work are on their best form.
Comfort is King
This is where comfort comes in to play. When your corporate representative is well supported and rested out of the hours that they are working for the business, their performance will correspond. So consider the quality provided by your selected transport and accommodation. A Central London luxury serviced apartment provides high quality furnishings, well equipped utilities and around 30% more space than a corresponding hotel suite. So after a long day of meetings, negotiations and networking, comfortable surroundings will help your executive to tackle the next day fully revived.
Private Working
A business trip inevitably involves hours of work outside of the physical meetings or conferences that are the focal point of the visit. In this way, it is vital that 5* serviced accommodation both provides the facilities and privacy to undertake tasks such as private calls and emails. No one wants unreliable wifi and noise leakage from neighbouring rooms. In choosing serviced apartments as accommodation, business visitors experience high bandwidth, reliable wifi and far superior levels of privacy.
Impeccable Service
The service that business travellers require is twofold: personal and executive. Within a serviced apartment environment in the City for example, business support is provided not just by the facilities themselves but through access to virtual PA or printing services. In order to focus on the task at hand, maid, catering, and laundry services are standard to ease the process of a business visit. This is especially true when many executives are travelling through timezones and need time to catch up and recover!
Longer Term Visits
Of course, some business travel requires longer term Serviced Accommodation than that of a conference or pitch. Often, a six to twelve month secondment or even a more permanent relocation will benefit from the use of a serviced apartment. Your executive is free to mix the high levels of service with independent living to create something far more akin to a home environment. This provides a further level of comfort that enables an executive to feel both relaxed and confident to make business progress.
Budget Concerns
So how do you reconcile all this talk of quality and comfort with a potentially tight budget? Well, it’s vital not to make assumptions about the cost of luxury. Whether you are booking flights, cars or accommodation, it may be that those options under the luxury label may not in fact be the most expensive option. Serviced apartments can be more affordable than you may expect, especially for longer stays. Indeed, forming a relationship across several trips can bring overall prices down. There is in addition the added value within a serviced apartment set up. The freedom to mix home catering with eating out can have a huge impact on expenses. Similarly, concierge services are able to source the most reasonably priced options within their knowledge of reliable firms.
So if you are tempted to cut corners when booking business travel, either for yourself or for colleagues, consider the extended impact of those cost savings. Ultimately, corporate travel is only worthwhile for the benefits that it can bring to the business. To achieve the optimal benefit, your representatives must be performing at their best. So look after them!
