Common Business Travel Problems Encountered

Business travelers face a number of complications when they're on the road. Sometimes these issues are inconveniences, and sometimes they can even cause safety hazards. One fact is sure: when individuals go out on business trips, they're not going on the road for the sake of leisure. They can expect to work hard, and be faced with many challenges.

As a result, the Global Business Travel Association recently conducted a survey that aimed to track the top concerns, safety hazards and inconveniences that are faced by business travelers when they're out on the road. The company then collected the responses and averaged out the top concerns faced by travelers - not including expense management or other financial concerns - when they're out on the road. The most-often identified mishaps and inconveniences are listed below:

54 percent of travelers identified weather delays as a concern 48 percent identified delayed flight and train departures as a concern 40 percent identified airplane incidents - such as mechanical issues - as a concern

16 percent identified missing their connecting flight as a concern "Delays, cancelations and mechanical issues are an unfortunate, unpredictable aspect of business travel," said Joseph Bates, vice president of research at the firm. "Travel managers face all of these challenges and leading companies are working to address these issues. This research looks to provide travel managers with data that can help them uncover new methods and polices to ease stress for their business travelers." One such change that could help ease stress for business travelers would be the implementation of automated expense reporting technology. As flight delays, hotel booking changes and other factors alter the costs of a given business trip, the traveler would have to log and analyze every increase and decrease to ensure that they're still in compliance with company policy. With the help of digital expense reporting technology, such as the program offered by Certify, these changes would be entirely automated, with the employee notified if the new altered costs now violate company policy. That gives them more time to focus on the trip, instead of their travel expense report - minimizing the effect of the mishap.

Safety should always be a priority during business trips In addition to inconvenient mishaps, the GBTA study also investigated the many safety risks that business travelers are exposed to while out on the road for their companies. Travelers identified the below-listed risks as their top concerns, health wise, while they're out on the road:

50 percent of corporate travelers identified the location of their hotel was a top concern 36 percent identified airline safety records as a concern 35 percent identified safety of ground-based transportation as a concern 34 percent identified ignorance as to who they should call in case of emergency as a concern

Safety concerns may be of an even higher importance to business travelers than the possibility of mishaps such as flight delays and unplanned changes in hotel bookings. That's because, according to the GBTA findings, 46 percent of all respondents are not provided travel insurance by their company, and also have not procured such coverage for themselves via an outside agency.