5 Apps to Make Business Travel a Breeze

Let’s face it, for the constant traveller, business travel can often feel more stressful than enjoyable. From rescheduled flights and impossibly long taxi lines, to those frustrating ‘lost in translation’ moments in a foreign country – when you are on the move, there are many elements that can turn a simple business trip into a logistics or safety nightmare.

Whilst some elements will always be outside our control, planning can go a long way towards reducing the stress of travel logistics gone wrong.  Here’s five of the best business apps to arm you for a successful trip:

1. Tripit

If you’ve ever found yourself searching through your handbag in a desperate attempt to find your flight details, then you’re probably one of those people who have also pleaded to the app gods for a better, more efficient system to organise your travel itinerary. Cue Tripit, riding in on a white horse.

Tripit stores all your flight details in the one app – hotels, flights, car rentals, restaurant confirmations – you name it. But it’s also so much more than a simple storage system. If there’s any changes to your flight, you get immediately notified. You can also share your entire itinerary with colleagues and friends so they can stay up to date with your travels, making coffee in a foreign city far easier. Plus, the app notifies you if your favourite seat becomes available, a sure winner for any flyer who loves a little extra legroom (who doesn’t!).

2. SafetyIQ

As companies grow these days, so too does the number of travelling employees. It’s a pretty special thing to get paid to visit the Big Apple or the Eiffel Tower – but for those workers in the mining, energy, oil, and gas sectors – the destinations are usually much more remote and isolated, exposing them to higher risk. And SafetyIQ is the tool that keeps you safe.

In a nutshell, SafetyIQ is a journey management app that does one thing really well – and that’s alleviating stress. It’s a system where employees can share their travel status with their bosses. Travellers can create their own journeys, select their mode of transport, create checkpoints, and indicate the time of their journey, giving management some peace of mind with the knowledge that they will be alerted if anything has gone wrong. Equally, it gives employees the freedom to spend their days off enjoying the sites, not chasing up phone calls from their worried bosses. It’s a win-win scenario!

3. XE Currency

Say goodbye to attempting to do high school maths in your head in your endeavour to order a coffee. XE is your new bff when it comes to currency conversion. It has a bunch of business-oriented features, but where it really gives you an instant peace of mind is through the simple fact that it can convert every world currency, instantly. It also functions offline, which provides instant relief for those travellers in a place with limited connectivity.

For those unsure whether today is a good day to make the currency exchange, XE provides historic currency charts so you can gage whether the current rate is sitting at a high or low, making sure you stretch your work travel budget in the best way.

4. Gate Guru

Gate Guru is the ultimate slashie, offering a bunch of features that are sure to help you stress less, especially in a foreign airport. It hosts your detailed itinerary and keeps you updated about flight changes or delays in real time. But the real winner with Gate Guru is how it provides a wealth of airport information – from amenity information, to weather forecasts, and even little airport tips like where the best place to eat is. You’ll know what you’re having for lunch before you’ve even landed.

You can also use the app to book discounted hire cars so the journey from airport to business locale is seamless, while the airport amenity list should help direct you to the nearest airport lounge or business centre should you have some urgent tasks to check off.

5. Google Trips

Google Trips has just landed on our smartphones, giving other travel apps a run for their money. In addition to centralising and storing your travel itinerary (even in offline mode), it provides a list of the most popular sightseeing destinations, restaurants, and day plans. Your days off are about to get a whole lot easier.

Bonus app: Duolingo

Bonjour! Hola! Guten Tag! Ciao! Ohayo! Prepare to look like a real local with Duolingo – your personal language teacher that fits right into your pocket. For those business travellers looking to build client relationships, or simply navigate from A to B, Duolingo is the perfect tool to help you communicate.

More like a game than a lesson at school, Duolingo teaches you to speak, read, listen, and write in a bunch of languages (specifically 23), including Spanish, French, German, Italian, and even Hungarian!

It’ll even teach you the phrases that you’ll actually use, such as “where are the croissants?” and “democracy is the dictatorship of the majority” (yes, these are actual phrases).

Article Published by eGlobal Travel Media.

Business Travellers Deserve to Feel Protected

Whether you or your travelling colleagues, are flying, driving or catching an Uber, your organisation is responsible for your safety. Watch as SafetyIQ shows you how to quickly and easily check-in that you are safe without a ‘big brother’ approach.