What Hotel Features Are Important for Business Travel?

What hotel or resort features are important for business travel? There is a big difference between business travelers and vacationers—travelers away on business aren’t necessarily thrilled about their destination, but want to make the best of it. Meanwhile, vacationers are happy go lucky and just want to live in a time capsule!

However, if you are away on business, then business always has to come first. Therefore, the best features will not necessarily be luxury and fun diversions, but items that will keep you connected to the business world. For example, every hotel you consider should have high-speed Internet access. You should be able to login to your email or any public or private website using a laptop computer. (Remember when traveling to bring a long a flash drive of any files you might need, or store them remotely at a private storage site.)

You can also benefit from a work desk, a feature that is becoming increasingly common even for standard hotel rooms. Some hotel rooms offer fax machines, copiers or even full PCs in their units, while others simply have a business center on the premises. This is not a big issue, as you can easily walk over to the center to run business errands. However, not having Internet access in the room can make your stay a bit frustrating. Other features to look out for include laundry services, secretarial services and of course room service (24 hours if possible) because coffee in the morning always helps!

If you are traveling in a group then your company may find it useful to rent a conferencing room or meeting room to discuss business matters. Some rooms are quite bare, having only a few extra chairs, while others are truly lavish and offer audio and visual equipment for teleconferencing and professional presentation.

Last but not least, don’t forget the personal amenities. All work and no play makes you dull, right? So try and find a business hotel that offers an on-site gym (work off that stress) and a wellness center that offers massage, spa treatment, sauna and solariums. Take a dip in the swimming pool too! Hey, it’s business related! You need to cool down, right? Search for these amenities and your business trip will go “swimmingly.”