Travelling for business is often crucial for the success of securing new deals and customers and growing a business. However, especially businesses which are just starting up can’t always spend too much money on travel expenses such as flights, accommodation and business lunches. The current economic climate also makes business travel harder for established businesses. This is more often the reason why business owners and Entrepreneurs are cutting down on business trips which they don’t see as crucial to the future success of their business activities.

However, when you take a few minutes longer to plan and book a business trip and follow some of our tips you can potentially save a lot of money. By using the below mentioned websites for searching for hotels or alternative accommodation and flights you can often save hundreds of dollars per person on your business trips.

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Search for affordable business hotels

• http://www.trivago.com  – Trivago compares the hotel prices of over 150 different booking, travel and hotel websites and is able to compare a grand-total of over 600,000 hotels.
• http://www.booking.com – They offer over 260,000 hotels on their hotel price comparison and booking website.
• http://www.ebookers.com – They feature over 110,000 hotels on their hotel booking website.
• Further websites for hotel comparisons and bookings are http://www.laterooms.com and http://www.lastminute.com

Alternatives to hotels when going on a business trip

A new concept of renting an entire flat or a room for only a night or maybe a week emerged a few years ago. This kind of accommodation can be more spacious, less expensive and travellers often feel more like at home.

• http://www.airbnb.com – Offers accommodations in over 34,000 cities around the world.
• http://www.wimdu.com – Wimdu offers more than 150,000 apartments around the world.
• http://www.9flats.com –  9Flats offers more than 80,000 flats to rent for a night or more.
• http://www.couchsurfing.org – Couchsurfing is a bit different to the previous three websites as the flat owners don’t charge for the accommodation as the website is more community-driven. In exchange you are expected to offer your own flat to other people when they travel in your city.

Search for better flight deals for your business trip

• http://www.skyscanner.net – Skyscanner compares prices and routes of over 1,000 airlines around the world to find the best prices, times and routes for your business travel.
• http://www.kayak.com – Kayak compares hundreds of travel websites to find the best flight (and hotel) deals for your business trip.