International Business trips

Business trips are just part of doing business. A company tries to choose only its best people to represent it. Trips can happen in or out of the country. And there are as many reasons to go on a business as there are places to go: to sign contracts, to discuss terms of delivery, payment or shipment, to have tests, to consult, to improve one’s professional skills, to provide support. Representatives of the companies involved usually make preliminary arrangements in order to meet. Whether a long-term or short-term trip, the itinerary must be carefully planned by the head of a department or another executive. After the trip, an employee is ordinarily expected to give a full financial accounting of the trip to his boss. Sightseeing, cultural events and just plain relaxing are a regular part of every business trip.

And no businessman would dare forget to buy gifts for relatives, friends and colleagues while on a business trip to an interesting, new location. These trips are important because they contribute to the expansion of a company’s business relationships and help that company succeed in the competitive world market.

Business today is international in character, and business people often have to travel. On a business trip people might meet colleagues and business partners for the first time. Often, colleagues from different countries experience cultural difficulties, that is, they are surprised by strange, to them, social conventions in a new place. Different cultures do things differently! Management styles also differ from country to country. It’s often useful when doing business in a foreign land, to get some advice from a special agency which consults on questions of international business. These days business trips are very important because face to face meetings are more valuable to profitable business than any other type of strategy.

Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting customs duties and for controlling the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out of a country. The movement of people into and out of a country is normally monitored by immigration authorities, under a variety of names and arrangements. The immigration authorities normally check for appropriate documentation, verify that a person is entitled to enter the country, apprehend people wanted by domestic or international arrest warrants, and impede the entry of people deemed dangerous to the country.

Each country has its own laws and regulations for the import and export of goods into and out of a country, which its customs authority enforces. The import or export of some goods may be restricted or forbidden.

In most countries, customs are attained through government agreements and international laws. A customs duty is a tariff or tax on the importation (usually) or exportation (unusually) of goods.

Commercial goods not yet cleared through customs are held in a customs area, often called a bonded store, until processed. All authorised ports are recognised customs areas.

In some countries, customs procedures for arriving passengers at many international airports and some road crossings are separated into red and green channels. Passengers with goods to declare (carrying items above the permitted customs limits and/or carrying prohibited items) go through the red channel. Passengers with nothing to declare (carrying goods within the customs limits only and not carrying prohibited items) go through the green channel. These passengers are subject only to spot checks to save time. However, if a passenger going through the green channel is found to be carrying goods above the customs limits or prohibited items, he or she may be prosecuted for making a false declaration to customs.

Airports within the European Union (EU) also have a blue channel. As the EU is a customs union, travellers between EU countries do not have to pay customs duties. Passengers arriving from other EU countries go through the blue channel, where they may still be subject to checks for prohibited or restricted goods.

2. PRACTICE: Business trips: Air tickets

Imagine you are to have a business trip in Montreal, Canada. You should leave from Kyiv on 12.03.2015 at 10.55 a. Fill in the gaps in the ticket.

Say whether statements are true or false:

1. You can smoke aboard. True / False

2. You fly the highest class. True / False

3. You sit in the very front of the cabin. True / False

4. Master your dialogical speech skills on the topic.

5. Get more information on http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/business/talkingbusiness/unit1telephone/5flights.shtml

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