How Hoteliers Can Make Productive Use of Flight Time

Many hoteliers need to travel frequently on business purpose. This can turn out to be annoying for some people as they feel a huge amount of time is wasted during the drive to the airport, checking in a couple of hours prior to the flight, and during the actual flight itself. On top of that, there can be flight delays which can add to the frustration.

Hoteliers, business executives, entrepreneurs are usually very productive individuals who like to make fruitful use of their time and don’t want to waste it. So we present some tips on how to make productive use of this time while you are traveling.

1. Do things on your laptop that you have been putting off

A general rule of thumb is to do tasks on flight that don’t require too much focus and attention, as it might be difficult to focus intently during the flight.

There are certain things which you might have been putting off from a long time, which you can do now while on a flight. For example, suppose you had been planning to clean up your email inbox and delete all the unwanted email conversations, but just couldn’t get around to it.

Now is the opportunity to get it done. Get your mailbox in order by flagging the important mails, discarding the unimportant ones, categorising or labelling emails, and also composing any email template drafts, etc.

You can also compose mail replies that you want to send and save them as drafts. When you get on the ground and reconnect back to the internet, you can just hit the send button. Basically any activity that you can do without needing to focus too intently can be done on the flight. This helps you make valuable use of the flight time which would have otherwise gone wasted.

 

2. Do some reading and staying in touch with news

Hoteliers need to be in touch with the industry happenings and news. For this you need to check out hospitality magazines, blogs, podcasts, interviews and news. These can provide you deep insights of the industry and inform you of latest trends and important changes taking place. However it can be quite time consuming to read all the journals, magazines, books, articles, etc. Now is the opportunity to catch up with the industry, if you haven’t been able to do so during a busy week.

What you can do is take along a couple of hospitality magazines while traveling and check them out during the flight. You may have some books on your kindle which you might have bookmarked on your device, some blog posts and articles that you wanted to check out. You can also listen to your favorite podcasts or check out interviews of the industry’s leading figures.

3. Prepare, review, contemplate

If you have an important meeting coming up after you land, you can do some preparation and planning for it while on the flight. You may have done most of the preparations for the meeting earlier, but there might have been few things left due to shortage of time.

While on the flight, you can just go over the presentation you have prepared for the meeting, see if some things need to be added, removed or changed; You may think up questions that the other party may ask and prepare your answers. You may also write down some fresh new thoughts that just came to your mind which might prove useful during the meeting.

We all know that the mind can work in strange ways and give us ideas when we are least prepared, like when we are showering or just sitting idly. So make sure you have a notepad handy or if you prefer you can use an app for this purpose. Contemplating, planning, reviewing are some of the things that you can do while you are aboard the flight and have a few hours of time on your hands.

4. Do some deep thinking and planning

You may be pleasantly surprised when you realize that long flights can be ideal for some deep thinking and planning. At office, there is always someone knocking on your door, phone ringing by your side, email notifications popping up, some problem arising at the workplace, etc. Due to the constant distractions it can be pretty difficult to allocate lengthy periods of time for analysis, planning and deep contemplation.

However when you are on a flight, there are hardly any distractions. You may have a hour or even more on your hands where you are unlikely to be disturbed. You can use this time to think long, deep and hard about some of the pressing problems facing your business, or about future goals or some decision that you have to make.

You can jot down ideas, thoughts and notes that you might want to look at later. Sometimes you may get very creative and unexpected ideas or solutions. You may achieve surprising clarity of thinking as there is no one to disturb or distract you.

5. Produce content

If you write and publish content for a magazine or website blog then you can try to do some of it now. In today’s world dominated by social media and internet, each business needs to produce and publish content on regular basis in order to stay alive in the market.

You may have some social media handles where you haven’t published any posts in a long while. Now is the time to do so. When you have done the reading to your heart’s content, it is time to start using that knowledge and information to produce content that can have a strong impact on your business.

6. Network

Almost every businessman knows the value of having a strong social network. So don’t pass up any opportunity to know more people and increase your network. Talk to your co-passengers. Introduce yourself and your brand. You never know who the person sitting next to you might turn out to be.

7. Rest, relax and carry out leisure activities

You may have some hobbies, interests outside of your business. It is not always that you can give time for your interests or hobbies because of the work demands. Now that you are sitting comfortably on a flight or at the airport, you can, if you prefer, take out time for such activities that relax, rejuvenate and re-energize you.

Maybe there is a particular sport that you follow, or a particular personality that you admire, or maybe you have an interest in history or architecture. You can check out news, videos and other stuff related to these interests. Productive use of the time does not always mean that you have to keep doing something related to the business.

You may do other things not related to the business so that you can save time later on. Spending some time reading about things that interest you may also provide you a sort of relaxation and ease your stress. Later on when you get back to working you may feel a new freshness and energy.