Sitting in your office, in your comfortable chair, you scrutinise your emails to make sure that you’re up to date, you share that memo with a selection of colleagues, you process that huge order and collect more leads. And when you’ve done all of that you order room service and plan an evening at a Broadway play.
OK, so not all business travel will lead you to the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York, or to the Ritz in London, or even to the Budget Motel in Timbuktu, but modern technology means that wherever you are, you can keep in touch with the office and keep in contact with your clients as though you were sitting right at your desk.
Of course, the Internet has been around for a number of years now, so why has there been a recent explosion in the number of people able to work on the go? The answer is simple: mobile technology.
A recent survey found that business people on the move tend to use many of the same mobile applications as other tourists. The results show that rather than pick specific travel apps (such as Gate Guru) businessmen and women would rather use the likes of Twitter, Facebook and email apps to keep in constant contact while travelling abroad.
Somewhat surprisingly was the revelation that more than 10% of business travellers do not have access to a smartphone while they are travelling, but that number is expected to decrease significantly in the next decade.
For most, working abroad is exactly the same as working from home. As long as the laptop is charged and connected to the Internet (sometimes via their mobile device), and as long as there is phone signal, the lines between static and mobile working are more blurred than ever.
Which suits the economic realities perfectly. Though the Australian government, for instance, have recently announced plans to subsidise business travel, there has been a fall elsewhere in the number of organisations willing to splash out on luxury or upscale travel. However, with the amount of money saved through mobile working, maybe you can convince your company to splash out on the Waldorf.
