Categories
Business Travel Travel Industry

The Science of Shrinking Personal Space on Airplanes

It’s no surprise that airlines have been squeezing more seats onto their planes. Some criticize the move increases their profits, while others defend it keeps ticket prices low. Regardless of your stance on the matter, personal space on airplanes is expected to continue to dwindle on commercial airlines. But, many are surprised by just where that space is shrinking.

Average planes now have 142 seats, with the previous average being 137 seats. Most think this new row was previously leg room. But with the creation and implementation of slimmer backed seats, our leg space is relatively unchanged. The noticeable shrinking of personal space actually comes from headroom. On most new planes, our heads are now three inches closer to the head of the person sitting in front of you. Once that person reclines, the distance between you and them shrinks further. 

It’s human nature to become anxious and agitated by shrinking personal space. And of course, the size of this personal bubble is different for everyone. Some people can handle this closeness more easily than others.  But science does show that some parts of the body require a larger personal bubble. For example, you probably don’t care how close your foot is to another object. Not surprisingly, the head is an area that is more sensitive. When that seat in front of you reclines, it is noticed immediately. Though it hasn’t been officially researched, many think the shrinking space correlates with increased incidences of flying rage in recent years. 

Additionally, bathrooms are sizing down. In the new Airbus A320s and A321s, they have cut the bathroom galleys in half, creating two bathrooms next to each other instead of one.

How to deal with shrinking personal space on airplanes

At least airplane manufacturers are trying to alleviate the tension. Boeing has reported that they are redesigning the ceiling panels to provide a more spacious view up above. We have yet to know if it will relieve some of the strain, so here are a few other tips to use the next time you fly.

  • Sit in the first row. There is more room for your legs and no one sitting in front of you to recline.
  • Even the first few rows can make a difference. Seeing only a few rows instead of 30 can make you feel less stressed.
  • If you can afford it, fly first class.
Categories
Business Travel Travel Technology

Christopherson Business Travel and your Risk Management Program

I recently had the pleasure of hearing Charles Brossman, a prominent risk management author and consultant speak at GBTA- North Carolina’s Education Breakfast. His informal but informative conversation educated our group on the legal terms associated with risk management. These terms, coupled with real- life examples, left us thinking about ways to improve the risk management programs for our own organizations.

How Christopherson provides risk management security

Guess what? By partnering with Christopherson as your Travel Management Company, you already have the shoe on the right foot. Housed in our AirPortal 360 platform, SecurityLogic allows travel managers can access real-time threats. This includes security updates, weather, traffic, airport delays, and disaster alerts. These alerts can be automatically pushed to travelers via text and email. With the intuitive Safety Check feature, you can request safety verification from your travelers, from anywhere in the world. Once activated, the traveler will immediately be messaged. Knowing that you are worried about their safety and they can also quickly respond. Additionally, SecurityLogic provides multiple global map overlays. All travel information is geocoded to street-level accuracy. So you can zoom into any country, city, or street to find risks near your travelers.
Learn more about how Christopherson can assist with your duty of care and risk management goals.

Charles Brossman is the author of the book “Building a Travel Risk Management Program: Traveler Safety and Duty of Care for Any Organization”. For more information on Charles Brossman and his services, see his website.

Christopherson Business Travel provides full-service travel management for companies. With advanced technology and customized service, we are one of the top TMCs in the nation. Contact us to learn how we can save your company time and money on future travel.

Categories
Business Travel

Why Booking Travel Yourself Loses You Money

One of the major objections you hear from business executives is: “why would we use a Travel Management Company when employees can just book travel through existing consumer online booking tools?”  Well of course, much has been written about the many benefits that a Travel Management Company can offer, and the savings that they can deliver, so I decided to go in a different direction and conduct a small experiment.

The travel booking experiment

Basically, I wanted to see the time it took me to book the same round-trip (including air, hotel, and car) in a leading online consumer booking tool vs. a leading online corporate booking tool. I shopped for low to mid-range bookings but I decided to not follow any additional budget or travel policies.

The results

My findings?  It took me an extra 5 minutes to book travel online than through a corporate booking tool.

Then I wondered the time it would take over a year. Let’s say an employee travels for business two times a month. That’s an extra 120 minutes, or two hours, a year spent booking travel online.   In other words, if you’re a business owner with 100 employees, you stand to lose 200 hours annually just by booking travel through online sites. 

Now, count in your employee’s prospect lunches, client dinners, and other superfluous activities.  This seemingly simple task ultimately wastes your employee’s time and the company’s money. My experiment merely scratched the surface of unmanaged time due to travel booking. And as I mentioned, it didn’t account for additional budget constraints or travel policies. Travel management companies, like Christopherson Business Travel, allow employees to do they job they were hired to do. Let them get back to work while your travel management is in good hands.

Categories
Travel Industry Travel News

Delta Air Lines Continues To Innovate

Here at Christopherson Business Travel, we’re pretty big fans of Delta Air Lines. Their continual innovation and commitment to fliers is inspiring. Earlier this year, our management team had an opportunity to hear some of Delta’s top leaders speak. One of those industry leaders was Tim Mapes, Senior Vice President – Chief Marketing Officer of Delta.  With a company that is consistently pioneering, we valued the opportunity to understand the message behind the brand.

How Delta continually innovates

During the meeting, Mapes said, “If the world is changing faster on the outside than you’re changing on the inside, then your company is dying”.  Sound business advice, it dawned on me how hard Delta strives to be on the cutting edge.  For example, their revolutionary new baggage ticketing system released this year. Or how their Gift Back Project cultivated altruism by recognizing selfless individuals. Mapes also explained the three pillars of their brand:

  • Thoughtful ? Always be warm and caring.
  • Reliable ? Get our passengers home on-time, safely, and with their bags.
  • Innovative ? Strive to be the first in the industry to make a change, and then continually innovate.

Delta Air Lines continues to deliver on their reliability brand promise. Their hard work and dedication lead to great accolades. For example, this November Delta was named the most punctual airline in North America. Hearing Mapes speak about the foundation of the Delta brand and recognize it in their recent updates was inspiring.

Christopherson Business Travel is an award-winning corporate travel management company. We help busy companies book, manage, and expense their business travel, so they can get back to what’s important to them. Contact us if you are interested in learning how we can simplify your company’s travel.

 

 

Categories
Travel Industry Travel News Travel Technology

Delta’s New Baggage Tracking System

Almost two months ago, Delta introduced their much-anticipated new baggage tracking process. Originally announced last spring, their new checked luggage process is now active in 84 airports. If you are a frequent business traveler, make sure you take advantage of this new technology.

Delta’s New Baggage Tracking System

What makes Delta’s new tracking system so innovative? Bags checked through Delta Air Lines receive a tag. These Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags transmit an individual frequency, making them easier to locate. This is the same technology as used in E-Z Lane toll passes, id badges, electronic locks and even library books.

Once the RFID tags are attached to the luggage, they continue down the conveyor belt to the designated plane. A red light/green light system identifies the bags and their correct flow. The system shuts down when a bag is scanned and found to be headed the wrong way. If this happens, an agent easily locates the bag and moves it to the correct flow.  Delta claims it has 99.9 percent accuracy of luggage making it to their correct destination.

Mobile app provides instant information for the flyer

Delta’s conjoining app notifies the flyer when their luggage reaches baggage claim. More incredibly, it allows the flyer to see their bag’s journey throughout the day.  I already know I’ll be obsessively monitoring my bags the next time I fly with Delta!

Christopherson Business Travel is a leading travel management company in the United States. We specialize in exceptional customer service and forward thinking travel technology, making the lives of our clients and their travelers easier.

Categories
Choice Humanitarian Travel News

Choice Humanitarian Expedition – Marta’s Story

Christopherson Business Travel is a proud corporate sponsor of CHOICE Humanitarian. In addition to voluntary employee contributions and matching program, Christopherson annually sends a group of employees on a week-long humanitarian expedition.  CHOICE Humanitarian provides support to these small villages in extreme poverty with a village-centered approach. By teaching self-sustaining skills and implementing needed updates, CHOICE is driven by eliminating extreme poverty. This year, the group of nine employees visited a small village in the Buena Vista region of Guatemala. Marta Musich, a corporate travel agent from our Denver office volunteered this year. Below is her experience.

Traveling with our team on the CHOICE Expedition was a fantastic experience, even though it was somewhat bittersweet. It was a long ride to get to the village in Buena Vista, high in the mountains. It was a beautiful and bumpy ride into the jungle. We arrived at the village in the late afternoon. There was a wonderful and joyous welcoming from the villagers. We went down a steep mountain trail to end up by their small but clean school where we would be spending the next few days. I was sure happy to hear that the village men would be bringing down our luggage for us.

They put on a dance for us by the children, The Dance of the Dear. This is a dance that has been used over the years to welcome the visitors to the village. I really enjoyed watching all the children and villagers welcoming us. They were quite happy to see us and I was getting excited to start helping them with our assigned project.

We split up in groups. I was in the painting group. We were going to paint their community center. We were handed our supplies to complete this task and worked with several men from the village.

This was quite a highlight for me. I was able to spend time with the men and the children too. The villagers I painted with tried to teach me Q’eqchi. I had to pronounce the words over and over until I had them just right. We made a game out of it, they had to pronounce them in English. This helped break the ice. My favorite word was “us” which mean good. I used it a lot. The child were great. They wanted to help us too, until we brought out the coloring books. Then they decided they liked that a lot more.

After finishing the painting. I went over to help with the stove building. Everyone was helping to make their homes a much healthier place for them to live. The old way of cooking caused the walls and ceiling to be blackened with soot.

Some of my favorite moments were trying to grind the corn and make tortillas. I never realized how hard it was to do from scratch. I never was able to form one correctly. I need a lot more practice. It was quite fun laughing with the women in their homes. I so enjoyed being with the people of the village.

They really enjoyed the soccer balls that were brought and the children had so much fun with bubbles, coloring books, and jump roping. It made me smile from inside out.

The week was filled with many emotions. It saddened me to hear that their government would not pay for a teacher to come to the school and that the children had been without one for six months.

One day, I really wanted to take a shower after hours of long hot, sweaty work. But after I learned that the villagers were not using water so we could have a shower, I felt that I could stay a little dirty. It was so selfless of them to do this for us. They already a have so little; how could I take more from them?

There was hardly anything in their homes, yet they all seemed happy with so little. You hardly ever heard a child crying or not sharing with the others. These are lessons that so many of us need to learn. Maybe a few less possessions and more time spent together doing things would be good.

The saying “It takes a village to raise a child” still seems to apply here. I’m not sure if this is one of the reasons our children have become so isolated, where we don’t even know the family that lives next door, but it was such a wonderful time watching everyone together. A movie was shown one night and for some of the children this was the fist time they had seen one.

Personally, I have been downsizing for many years. I have realized that you don’t have to have a lot to be happy. But I am saddened that these villagers don’t even have the basics. There aren’t many ways to make money that far in the jungle. My outlook on poverty has changed a lot after this trip. I see how stuck people can become when it comes to getting out of poverty.

I was so lucky to meet such wonderful and caring people from the CHOICE group. We are so fortunate to live where we all can get an education and have an opportunity to make our lives better. I am very thankful for all that I have. This has opened my eyes and I hope I can find opportunities to help out the less fortunate here, near my own community.

See more photos from Marta’s expedition group on Facebook.

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Categories
Guides Travel Tips

Holiday Gift Guide For Frequent Travelers

In the final installment of our holiday gift guide, we have focused on the frequent business flyer. This demographic has an established travel routine, developed through loads of trial and error. Here are a few of our favorite gift ideas, designed to compliment and assist your active business traveler.

Gift guide for frequent travelers

  1. Passport sleeve– I love this gift idea because it is so useful, but can also be customized for your loved one. For an international flyer, these handy organizers provide a place to keep a passport and other important items, like money or credit cards. You can find truly wonderful passport holders on etsy.com too, with options to personalize further or monogram.
  2. Grid organizer– There is nothing more frustrating than a knotted ball of cords when traveling. They take up precious packing space, wiggle to the bottom of bags, and are never there when you need it the most. That’s why this organization system is so ingenious. A slim board with rubber elastic weaved throughout, it securely holds any sized gadget, cord or other loose item in place. It’s versatile and solves one of travels most frustrating problems.
  3. Travel steamer– Sometimes an iron is just not enough. This clothes steamer is small enough to tuck away in luggage, but powerful enough to get out the worst wrinkles. This is a thoughtful gift for the business traveler who always looks their best, even in wrinkle-prone outfits.
  4. Travel toothbrush sanitizer– When was the last time you replaced your travel toothbrush? Yeah, I’m not sure either. This compact toothbrush and carrier kills 99% of germs in just seven minutes. It’s a practical gift, but provides lasting care while your loved one is on the road. And will get them to replace their existing travel toothbrush.
  5. Portable scale– Even if your frequent flyer typically carries on their luggage, this is a gift that will absolutely get use at some point or another. This compact sized scale is small enough to hide away when not needed, but will be a lifesaver when the moment arrises.
  6. Monday to Sunday skin mask kit– Pamper you loved one, even when they are on the road. This seven day mask kit provides moisturization, vitamins and essential oils for a week long treatment. Plus, they are small and easy to pack, with no liquids that might spill or raise TSA concerns.
  7. Noise cancelling headphones– A quality pair of headphones is vital of plane travel these days. Even if your business traveler doesn’t listen to music while traveling, cancelling out the noise of the plane engine or screaming babies is sure to be appreciated. There are many different styles and price level, but this guide from Forbes will assist you in finding the perfect pair.
  8. Airport lounge access– This may be my favorite on the list. For the frequent flyer who often has long layovers or just likes to get away from the crowd, give them the gift of lounge access. You will need to know the airline they most often fly with. Do some research first and contact the airline directly through their website for the best deal. Or, try a service like LoungBuddy. They provide lounge access by the day, depending on availability at specific airports.

Still need more ideas? Read our two previous gift guides for more ideas. And happy holidays!

Categories
Travel Management

Closing The Gap on Travel Policy Perception and Reality

Not surprisingly, one of the hardest feats of an effective travel policy is an active implementation. No matter how well planned or laid out, there always seems to be a disconnect between the company’s travel policy and the travelers who use it. Unfortunately this beast isn’t just compliance, but also what the travelers believe the policy allows. A new report from the GBTA Foundation and HRS recently provided data on just how large this perception gap is. Unfortunately, it’s larger than most of us had hoped.

According to the report, 96 percent of North American business travelers say they are knowledgeable about their company’s travel policy. On a broad scale this looks pretty good, right? The inconsistencies come down to the smaller details of the travel policies. For example, half of the surveyed travelers said their policies are mandated. According to the travel managers, it is really only a third. Another example of dissonance is ride sharing. 24 percent of travel managers say ride sharing is prohibited under their travel policy, while half as many travelers believed that as well. It sounds like a no-brainer, but most often a lack of communication causes this disparity.

These travel policy miscommunications may be costing your company money

Noncompliance of any kind can run up travel costs. Without a constant eye on expenses and billing, things can get out of control quickly. But something often overlooked is the value lost caused by this policy miscommunication. For example, 89 percent of the travel managers surveyed had negotiated free wi-fi in hotels for their travelers. Unfortunately, 22 percent of the business travelers were still expensing for wi-fi. The report concluded that they were simply unaware of the negotiation.

How to increase travel policy communication

One key discovery in this report is that perception is more important than reality when it comes to relaying travel policy guidelines. If your traveler does not see or recall seeing an email sent with pre-boarding information, was it helpful in the end? Understanding how your travelers and company as a whole can best understand your travel policy decisions can improve compliance. As we’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, age and generation has been found to play a factor into how information is best communicated. This report found Generation Y and younger preferred being about travel policies directly. GBTA Foundation hypothesized it may be the employee’s first introduction into business travel policy, and they want to fully understand the process. Understanding how your travelers work best, and their comfort level with compliance will certainly get everyone on the right foot.

Closing the gap between traveler perception and policy reality

Increased communication and through the right channels will hopefully improve your own compliance. Here are a few other tips to close this gap even further.

  • Set up an approval process ensuring the travel policy is enforced.
  • Alert travelers to noncompliant behavior before they book.
  • Keep happy employees by taking note of their traveling preferences.
  • Use different channels to communicate and disseminate information. 

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Categories
Business Travel Travel Tips

Ultimate Travel Checklist for the Infrequent Business Traveler

Road warriors most often have their travel packing down to a quick science.  But what about the infrequent traveler?  We’ve created a travel checklist of not only what you may want to bring on your upcoming business trip, but also a “to-do” list for that upcoming trip.

Before you travel:

  • Sign up for all applicable loyalty programs (airline, hotel, car rental).
  • Make sure you have all loyalty program numbers in your reservation.
  • Download the airline mobile app for flight delays and gate changes.
  • Sign up to receive all travel alerts from your travel agency or airline app.
  • Understand your company’s health and travel insurance information.

Additional to-do items for an International business trip

  • Make sure your passport is current.
  • Alert the bank to prevent your card from being shut off.
  • Check out travel.state.gov for visa requirements, local laws and travel alerts.
  • Check the websites of the US embassy or consulate for the latest security messages.
  • The US Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization provide recommendations for vaccinations and other health precautions when traveling abroad.
  • Always carry contact information for the US embassy or consulate with you when traveling abroad.
  • Get a letter from your doctor about the medications prescribed to you. Some countries have strict laws on  prescription and even over-the-counter drugs.
  • Make sure your health insurance is valid overseas.  For example, Social Security and Medicare do not provide coverage abroad.
  • Make a photocopy of your passport.

What to bring:

My most often forgotten item is my toothbrush.  Probably because brushing my teeth is the last thing I do before I walk out the door.  And by habit, my toothbrush goes right back to the holder next to the sink.  Here is a quick checklist for those necessary items we don’t want you to forget:

  • Work clothes
  • undergarments
  • socks
  • belt
  • Workout clothes
  • Workout shoes
  • sleepwear
  • hand sanitizer
  • toothbrush and toothpaste
  • shaving cream and razors
  • shampoo and conditioner
  • deodorant
  • first aid kit
  • over the counter medications (ibuprofen, aspirin)
  • prescriptions
  • glasses
  • contact lens solution, case
  • ear plugs
  • mobile device, laptop
  • phone charger, laptop charger
  • Business materials
  • Business cards
  • travel comforts – headphones, books, magazines, language guides

Looking for more travel packing tips? Check out some of our other packing blog posts: