3 Smart Travel Trips for Today's Smart Entrepreneurs Smart Business Travel is essential for entrepreneurs of today

By Rahul R

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With smartness being the cornerstone in today's entrepreneurship, it only becomes imminent that all aspects of entrepreneurship turn smart; this is inclusive of even the micro factors such as resource management.

Now, an important tool under resource management is travel; and if you are a first time entrepreneur or a budding one, it should not hurt to travel smartly so as to utilize resources (monetary and non monetary) effectively.

In this regard, Entrepreneur India attempts at listing a guide for entrepreneurs to travel smart.

Tone down without compromising

As a first-time entrepreneur, it becomes obvious to ensure that your business travel plans stick to your budgetary allocations. Here, it does not hurt to fly economy class even if it is for high profile business meetings abroad.

"We are in a situation where millennials like clubbing office trips with personal trips and our wallets are getting bigger. The only one thing we want that is something to ease a travel," stated Anirudh Damani who is Managing Partner at Artha India Ventures.

The takeaway here from the above trend is to ensure a clear bifurcation between business and pleasure needs whilst on travel; at this juncture it is worth noting that intertwining of both to an extent is fine; but if this threshold is breached, you could end up having to return from your travels with less than what you thought with respect to business learnings.

Hence, toning down when on business travels is a potential smart move to resort to. Even aspects such as seeking budget accommodations (Despite having the budget to spend) and local public transportation (to travel locally) always go a long way with respect to you saving more than you intended to. While you do this, ensure that you do not compromise on aspects like food and communication.

In Rome do what the Romans do

Your business travels must also be your key to learning newer aspects; be it the local language of a city you visit, picking up a recipe of cooking a local dish, and more. Apart from your business learnings, these extra aspects take you a long way towards actual learning of cultures which could even help you in your business aspects.

The important aspect here is to not be a guest forever at the new place; but picking up the nuances so as to ensure that you (and your business) are wholesomely welcomed to uncharted territories.

"Today, people want to travel better, on a deeper emotional and more personal level, rather than just for the sake of ticking off destinations off a bucket list," added Viren Batra who is Co-Founder at Nirvana Travel.

"Experiential travel, themed tours, solo travel, these are fast becoming the norm, with people preferring genuine experiences and a chance to connect with the culture of a country to popular tourist destinations," informed Batra

Hence, as smart entrepreneurs, the smartest thing to do would be to undertake travel within your destination; the former travel could be emotional connect wherein you attempt to live the life of locals and amongst them.

Explore, more than travel

As a newbie entrepreneur, and with tight budgetary allocations, it becomes imminent that you do not shell out money; still you could do an exploration of both the place and your potential business partner.

The easiest way to resort to do this is to read up whatever material you can about your intended place of visit and the business prospects in that place. With this research, you would also be potentially empowered to start businesses in that place.

"There are three distinct phases of a business, i.e. the pre-trip, in-trip and post-trip, of a business trip," informed Balaji Ramakrishnan who is Co-Founder and CEO at Insteract.

The key takeaway here for entrepreneurs, is the fact that a business trip would not be complete without its learnings (in all forms).

Rahul R

Former Staff

Rahul R is a media professional with over 6 years of experience. Prior to Entrepreneur India, Rahul was a Senior Technical Journalist at EFY digital magazine. 
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