Crucial Elements to Planning a Business Trip

Business trips are a vital part of expansion and progression for growing companies, and fall well within the remit of the working executive or personal assistant. Business travel is also, at long last, back on the menu, after three years of travel instability from the pandemic and its aftermath. If you are relatively new as a PA, you might be finding yourself responsible for your first business trip. If so, what should you be taking into consideration?

Logistics

Naturally, the most important part of planning a business trip is figuring out the logistics. How many people will be in the trip’s delegation – and where exactly is the delegation headed? Answers to these questions and more will directly inform key decisions, including travel. 

For example, if the CEO is taking the entire executive board to meet a new partner on another continent, private jet hire would likely be a more suitable option than a commercial flight. Likewise, a team visit to another domestic branch might not command the same urgency or budget, leading to rail travel or – at a pinch – economy-class flight bookings.

You will also need to give time to accommodation as a consideration – again, with reference to the participants in the trip. Executive travellers might have more discerning expectations for accommodation, while, generally speaking, any bookings should be as close as possible to business locations and venues.

Packing

Granted, luggage packing will largely be left to the devices of each individual in your delegation – but you should still be drawing up a comprehensive list of business materials and other essentials to pack for the trip in question. This is particularly important if the purpose of the trip is to appear at a company exhibition, where marketing and stall materials are required.

Itinerary

As a PA, you will be intimately familiar with the management of executive schedules on a day-to-day basis. This responsibility is no different when it comes to business trips; indeed, careful planning of your delegation’s days on the trip is crucial to the success of that trip.

This means you will need to have close eye on every detail of the trip, from flight times and connections to accommodation check-ins – to say nothing of the various meetings and events that may be waiting for your delegation on the other side of travel.

Research

Lastly, but nonetheless importantly, you should give ample time to researching the destination for the trip – not just in terms of preparation for business matters, but also with regard to wider geography and culture. There are numerous reasons that this is important; firstly, there may be cultural norms that your superiors may benefit from being aware of.

Secondly, wider knowledge of the area can come in handy when it comes to managing downtime. If your delegation is at a loose end and in hopes of enjoying the local area, your prior research will enable you to book in somewhere suitable even at short notice.