Welcome to Travelturtle, the travel health advice site that provides you with country specific medical and vaccination reports usually only available to registered UK healthcare professionals.

Use this page to gain access to comprehensive information concerning all aspects of health advice for business travel.

• Use the information below to read about short trips, advice on important meetings, time zones, and high-risk destinations.
• As well as generic information on business travel advice, key sections include tips on jet lag and foreign food/drink.
• Further business travel health advice includes an immunisation guide and tips on sexual health whilst travelling.
• Other important sub-sections including isolation, psychological impacts, and immunisations are also covered for the intrepid business traveller.
• Further medical information is centred on key topics such as traveller diarrhoea and malaria.

Other useful health advice for business travel:

Business Etiquette Abroad

Business Travel

With business travel overseas becoming every more popular, this section provides our users with useful advice for business travel and tips for having the best business etiquette abroad.

International business travel requires a thorough knowledge of the local market and to make the most of your business travel, international knowledge is invaluable. For example did you know that one should avoid passing anything with the left hand in Afghanistan as it is considered unclean?

Business travel environment

Business travel overseas can be a tricky business so select the country you will be visiting for the A-Z list below to find all the latest tips that will enable you to make the most of your international business travel experience and understand your business travel environment.

The business traveller is often vulnerable to the following:

• crossing many time zones
• stressful, important meetings
• isolation from family
• travel to high-risk destinations

Jet lag

Business travellers should reserve time to recover from jet lag as it can seriously affect professional performance. This should be built into the trip – despite the cost of extra time away from the office.

Food and drink

The need to socialise with clients often makes it difficult to control consumption of food and alcohol. The pressure of work can also lead to increased alcohol consumption. Drinking  alcohol can lead to accidents, falls, dehydration and stomach upsets. It can delay recovery from jet lag and may increase  the likelihood of risky sexual behaviour.

Sexual behaviour

Business travel can encourage sexual risk-taking, particularly in some cultures where it is a normal part of post-business socialising. Loneliness and a lack of social inhibiting factors can also alter behaviour.

Business travellers should always use condoms and seek immunisation against Hepatitis B prior to travel. Commercial sex workers are a particularly high-risk form of contact.

Psychological pressures

The need to perform to a high standard in an unfamiliar environment in the absence of social support structures can bring significant emotional and psychological pressures. These need to be recognised and addressed. Travellers should attempt to resolve any outstanding relationship issues prior to departure and make efforts to maintain contact with family and friends, even where there are difficulties with time-zones and communication.

Immunisations

Last-minute trips can demand a tight immunisation schedule. Rapid courses of hepatitis B vaccination are available.

Malaria prophylaxis

Chemoprophylaxis must be tailored to the business trip. Malarone is often the most suitable option, because of its relative lack of side-effects (especially psychiatric) and requirement for only 7 days’ post-exposure use. It is expensive but the employer will often cover the costs.

Travellers’ diarrhoea

For a particularly important short trip where even the loss of a few hours to illness would be damaging, it is worth considering antibiotics for the prevention of travellers’ diarrhoea, or to be taken at the first signs of problems. Antibiotics taken twice a day can significantly reduce the risk of illness although the risk of side-effects should be taken into account as well as the possibility of developing an antibiotic-resistant infection.