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How A Virtual Assistant Can Help With Your Travel Planning

Barnaby

Barnaby Lashbrooke

Founder and CEO of Time etc, author of The Hard Work Myth

7 minute read

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According to the Global Business Travel Association, up to 1.3 million Americans travel every day for business.

When you're trying to focus on the details of your travels and make sure everything goes smoothly, it can be tough to keep up with other business matters at the same time. That's where a virtual assistant (VA) comes in.

No matter where you're traveling, it's always helpful to have somebody in your corner taking care of the nitty-gritty details. Virtual travel assistants can research flight information and compare prices to find the best deals for you. They can also organize hotel reservations, travel insurance, car hire, meeting venues, and other necessary services. Plus, they can coordinate business meetings and set up conference calls while you're on the go.

All of this makes for an easier and more stress-free trip, allowing you to focus on enjoying the experience instead of worrying about the little details.

How a virtual assistant can help

Trying to run a business and plan trips at the same time can be challenging, but you don't have to deal with it all yourself.

Here are some of the ways that an experienced virtual assistant can help take some of the pressure off and allow you to focus on growing your business:

Planning and preparation

If you're busy running the day-to-day aspects of your company, finding time to plan and prepare for your journey can be a nightmare.

Simply provide your virtual assistant with some criteria and guidelines, and they can do the rest:

  • Searching for the best deals to suit your budget
  • Booking flights
  • Online check-ins
  • Booking accommodation
  • Planning your itinerary
  • Exchanging currency
  • Arranging taxis and transfers from the airport
  • Planning transport for your onward journey
  • Organizing travel insurance
  • Sending timely travel plan reminders
  • Scheduling meetings at your destination

Managing your trip

Once your trip is booked and scheduled, your virtual travel assistant can help you manage it. They can keep track of flight delays and inform you of any cancellations. They can also monitor changes in local weather conditions and provide real-time updates on current events that may affect your travels.

They can also help you with organizing your travel itinerary and scheduling activities so that you can make the most of your journey. Visiting a new city and want to know the best places to eat? Have some free time in your schedule and want to know what the local area has to offer? Let your assistant find the answer for you.

Budget control

When you're pushed for time and frantically trying to sort all your travel plans yourself, it's easy to rush through the whole process in the name of just "getting it done". However, this can often lead to overspending.

A virtual assistant can help prevent this by sticking to your budget and ensuring that all costs are accounted for. This is even more important if you travel a lot because those small savings can mean a lot for your business.

Benefits of hiring a virtual assistant for your travel planning

Well, you can say that you can take care of your travel management yourself. But ask yourself, why put so much unnecessary stress on your shoulders when you can take advantage of a whole host of other benefits offered by a virtual assistant?

Save time

Think about all the time you'd spend on the phone and online to find flights, make reservations, and all the other arrangements that need to be sorted. As the head of your business, you need to ask yourself if this is time that you can afford? Is this the most effective use of your energy?

Virtual assistants help give you your time back. Just provide your VA with the necessary information about your travel plans, dates, destinations, preferences, budgets, and so on, and they can do the rest.

While they're taking care of everything on your behalf, you can use that reclaimed time to do more meaningful work, or take a well-deserved break!

Increase productivity

Simply put, the more time you spend on low-impact, shallow work means the less time you can spend on new ideas, strategies, and decisions that contribute to the growth of your company.

If you want your venture to be successful now and for years to come, you need to focus on the things that matter and make sure you're using your time wisely.

Save money

Since most virtual assistants are self-employed and work from home, most businesses find them to be a much more cost-effective option than recruiting for their in-house team.

When you compare the hourly rates of a virtual assistant and a full-time employee, you might be wondering how a VA is actually the more cost-effective option when their rates are higher ($36 versus $31, for example). While it looks like you’d pay less for a regular employee, the difference is that you only pay for a VA’s productive time completing your tasks, which can be as little or as much as you need.

If we take figures from recent research as an example–that the average full-time employee is productive for 2 hours and 58 minutes each day–what could set you back $232.50 to pay a full-time employee would only cost you $106.92 for the same amount of productive time with a virtual assistant.

And the savings don't end there. When you add up the totals for recruitment, employee benefits, equipment, and other office costs, hiring a virtual assistant could be up to 90% cheaper than a full-time employee.

Access to expertise and experience

No matter what your travel plans entail, you can rest assured that a dedicated professional will be there to help you every step of the way.

You can be confident that your assistant has the skills and experience needed (a minimum of five years experience for Time etc VAs!) to handle everything quickly and efficiently. They know the ins and outs of the travel planning process and will be able to take care of any problems that might come up. You can relax and enjoy your trip knowing that you're in good hands.

Take care of business while you're away

Don't let worries about your business keep you from enjoying your vacation, or from focusing during your business trip.

It's not only travel arrangements where virtual assistants can provide valuable support, but also managing a wide range of other day-to-day tasks, including:

It's important to bear in mind that each individual assistant will likely have a niche area of expertise that they specialize in, such as admin, executive support, or digital marketing. So if you originally hire a virtual assistant for travel planning but then decide you need to offload other specialized tasks (let’s say, social media management) that your current assistant is less skilled at, it's best to find someone else who is better suited for it.

One of the benefits of using a specialist virtual assistant service, such as Time etc, is that you can add additional assistants to your team at no extra cost, so you can make sure all bases are covered when it comes to your tasks.

What’s the bottom line?

Whether it's an out-of-state meeting, a networking event, or a family vacation, you want everything to go smoothly whenever you have to travel. But with all the logistics and planning involved, organizing a trip can be complex, time-consuming, and stressful.

This is why a virtual travel assistant can be a game-changer for business owners. Having an experienced professional to take care of the small details can help relieve the burden and make your trip much more enjoyable.

So if you're looking to save valuable time and energy on organizing your next trip, look no further. Our expert Time Etc team is ready to help you find reliable, experienced, and skilled virtual assistants that meet all your travel planning needs.

To ensure that you have a great experience as well as great results, we have a rigorous 10-stage application process for all virtual assistants looking to join us, with only the top 2% of assistants making it through, on average. Not only that, we offer all our users a lifetime happiness guarantee.

Speak to our expert team to get started or try a skilled virtual assistant for free today.

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About the author

Barnaby
Barnaby Lashbrooke is the founder and CEO of Virtual Assistant service Time etc as well as the author of The Hard Work Myth, recently recommended by Sir Richard Branson. Barnaby is a Forbes Columnist on productivity and is also an accomplished entrepreneur, selling more than $35 million worth of services.

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