This article covers how to delegate travel planning to a virtual executive assistant, as well as other ways an EA can help you while you during a trip.
Getting an EA to handle your travel arrangements can save you a lot of trouble when you’re planning an itinerary around several people’s schedules, or if you need to arrange appointments or reservations for when you arrive. And there are many ways they can lend a hand once you’ve landed, wherever in the world you find yourself.
- An executive assistant can help you plan your trips and provide valuable support while you’re traveling.
- Before the trip, you can get your EA to canvass ticket and hotel prices, coordinate schedules with other people, and schedule appointments with people you’re traveling to meet.
- While traveling, your EA can help you look up local establishments or venues, make last-minute purchases or reservations, and help you deal with travel-related troubles.
Getting Started
Before getting started, you may find it useful to make some initial preparations. These will make it easier for your EA to step in to help when you need them.
Set a Communication Channel
Choose a single channel to use when discussing travel plans. This can be any channel you regularly use, which allows for both text and voice messaging. Make sure it’s one you’ll have easy access to while traveling.
Slack or email are both good options. They’re good for sharing files and it’s easy to find specific past messages in both of them. They can also easily accommodate group discussions, in case you have to coordinate with other people for your travel plans.
Loop Your EA into Travel Discussions
Anywhere you’re coordinating travel plans—with the people you’re going with, or those you’ll meet at your destination—bring your EA into the discussion. Add them to group conversations or CC them in email threads. When you do, give the others a quick heads-up, so they know your assistant’s role. This could be something like:
- “By the way, I’m added my assistant, [Name], to the channel. They’ll be helping us with the travel plans.”
- “P.S. I’ve CC’d my assistant, [Name], so they can keep track of things and help us coordinate arrangements for the trip.”
Delegating Your Travel Itinerary
One way to save time is to have your assistant prepare your itinerary. While that’s a pretty straightforward task, there are a few cases where an EA’s help can go a long way.
Complex Itineraries
A straightforward return trip is easy enough to book yourself. However, if you’re visiting multiple venues or planning around several people’s schedules, it can be helpful to offload itinerary prep to an EA.
Your assistant can scout out hotels and transportation options to ensure you get to all your engagements on time, while hitting all your travel targets.
Scheduling Appointments
If you want to meet with multiple people on the same trip—for example, at a convention—it can be tricky to fit it all into your stay. And if you don’t plan ahead, you risk not finding common time with one or more of them. Your EA can take steps to ensure you don’t miss the chance to meet with those people.
Meeting with Other Attendees or Delegates
If you want to meet with other attendees, you can have your assistant take care of setting appointments.
Your EA can look up how to contact them (if you’re not already acquainted) and reach out to find common free time. If there’s more than one person you’d like to meet with, your EA can contact them all and sort through all their schedules to find an ideal team for you to meet with each one.
And if for some reason you need to reschedule during the trip, your EA will have all the info they need to find find another time that works for you both.
Booking a Meeting Venue
Your assistant can also reserve venues for any appointments you schedule. Whether you need a space in the hotel’s business center, a conference room, or a table in a nearby restaurant, just tell your EA and they can make the arrangements.
If the appointment’s set ahead of time, your assistant can forward the details to the other parties once they’re set. But this also works for impromptu plans you make during the trip: if in the afternoon you suddenly decide on dinner with other attendees, for instance, just send your assistant a message, and they can make a reservation while you’re working.
Getting Travel Support While You’re Away
Your EA can also provide support when you’re in the middle of your travels. This can range from making last-minute plans, to helping you sort out travel-related mishaps.
Finding a Place
Sometimes, you find yourself looking for a place that you hadn’t planned on visiting. Your assistant can help with this—not just with getting directions, but looking up venues or establishments that fit certain criteria.
For example, you might need to find:
- Somewhere to work or eat that’s open 24/7
- A restaurant with vegetarian options (or those for other dietary restrictions)
- Nearby entertainment (live music, paintball, etc.) that can fit a big group on short notice
… or something else entirely. Your EA can look these up both online and by calling establishments to see if they match your specifications. And if you need to reserve in advance, your assistant can handle that for you as well—this way, you can keep your mind on the trip while your EA handles the necessary preparations.
Travel Troubleshooting
When things go wrong while traveling, it can be extra stressful. Worse still, it can be hard to find solutions when you’re in unfamiliar surroundings—especially if you’re not versed in the local language.
An EA can provide a much-needed assist in cases like this. For example:
- Canceled, delayed or missed flight? Your assistant can look up the next best option, find somewhere for you to wait, or reschedule any meetings you’d otherwise end up missing.
- Need cash? Get your assistant to figure out where and how you can get some, whether that means options for withdrawing from a bank or otherwise getting it transferred to you.
- Lost something? Your assistant can call places you’ve visited and see if they have it among their lost-and-found items.
Any obstacle or mishap you run into while traveling, your EA can help: looking up solutions, getting information you need, or simply serving as another pair of eyes to look at the issue from another angle.
Get Travel Support with Magic
Magic can find you an executive assistant to help with you before and during your trips, whether for business or leisure. Our assistants are carefully screened to ensure they’re proactive, adaptable and insightful.
On top of that, our EA service comes with a 24/7 concierge service to provide support when your dedicated assistant is offline—so you’re never without support, no matter where you go.
Looking to get an assistant? Sign up and we can get started.
