If you’re a business owner, then you may have to arrange for a business trip at some point. Perhaps you need to fly out with some colleagues to meet an important client. Maybe there’s an industry-leading conference that several of you need to attend to help keep your finger on the pulse. Whatever the reason, it’s an exciting thing. Getting people out of the office is rarely a bad thing, after all! But arranging a trip and keeping everything [and everyone] together while you’re out there can be a headache.

Follow these steps to ensure your business trip goes as smoothly as possible!

 

When there are several people from your office going on the trip, then you suddenly have a lot of documents and belongings to worry about. You need to make sure everyone has their passport and any other travel documents they might need. If you’ve handed plane tickets to employees, then you’ll need to make sure they have those too. I’d recommend holding onto the plane tickets from the moment you get them to the moment the employees actually need them at the airport, though.

The day before you leave, get everyone to bring what they need to the office. Ensure everyone has everything. If yes, then just leave it in the office overnight, ready to go the next day.

 

I’m assuming that the business you’re attending to isn’t at the destination airport. You need to make sure transport from the airport to the hotel or the venue is arranged. This could be a simple as making sure there’s a big enough taxi available when you get there. You may even choose to use public transport. This might be a headache if you have a lot to carry, though!

If you’re in a big group with a lot of items, then you could consider car rental. In fact, if there really are a lot of you - as in, closer to and more than ten - then you could even rent a bus. If you’re going to New York City, for example, there are several options for NYC charter bus rentals. This could actually end up saving you money, as opposed to hiring several cars.

 

Here’s a silly and sad truth about business trips. They’re going to be more like school field trips than you could possibly imagine. A curious employee may break off from the group to explore something. Then they find themselves lost if you’ve moved on without noticing that they wandered off.

If they’re on the business trip with you, then I doubt that lost employee is expendable. You need to make sure you know where everyone is. And if you are all in different places and you need to pass information to all of them immediately, then you need to be able to do that. Sure, you could call everyone individually. [On that note, make sure you have everyone’s mobile number!] But you should probably consider using group instant messaging on your smartphones. Even something as simple as a group chat on WhatsApp will work wonders!