If you forget to switch your phone to silent while you rest, specially when you are weary after a 24-hour flight, can disrupt a good night's sleep. This is more dramatic when you cross time zones and your destination's nighttime is midday at your home city. Therefore, you might receive calls or messages while you are trying to have a good night sleep after those tiring long flights. Interrupting your sleep patterns, particularly when you are struggling and dealing with jet lag may hinder your productivity during your business trip.

Therefore, for iPhone users, it is important to become familiar with an automatic feature named do not disturb which can save you from waking up in the middle of the night because of a call.

Once you enable this feature, it silences your phone during the hours you specify, while still allowing calls through from VIPs like your partner or employer.

You can find this feature underneath the control centre in the iPhone's Settings app and once you open it, you need to tap on schedule to set your permanent sleeping hours. After that you can set your limits on who can reach you during that time.

If you click on favorites you can pick your preferred contacts including your partner and boss who are most likely to know where you are and what time it is in your destination so wouldn't wake you up in the middle of the night unless it was urgent. Meanwhile, you can silence calls from other contacts.

You can chose those favorites via the iPhone's separate Contacts app by calling up their contact card, hitting add to favorites, selecting the correct phone number and you've completed that task.

You can always change your favorites by opening contacts, clicking the favorites icon at the bottom left and clicking edit at the top.

In contrast, you can use the everyone option if you are contacted from private or varying number and need those, as it silences other beeps such as for emails and text messages yet still need allowing your phone to ring.

For those choosing favorites or no one, your phone can also be set to ring if the same person tries to call twice within three minutes. However, you should this feature with cause as it often results in callers who hang up and dial again.

If you are expecting an important call, you can disable do not disturb on a one-off basis by swiping up on your phone to reveal the Control Centre, and then you can click on the moon icon. This feature makes your phone temporarily ring, beep or vibrate as usual when somebody calls you, texts you or other notifications come through; however, your phone automatically returns to your usual quite schedule the following day.

As the do not disturb feature relies on your phone's local time, you won't need to adjust your settings when traveling overseas or even interstate. Your phone will adapt to your regular schedule according to your destination's time.

Just make sure that your phone is set to identify where you are by browsing to Settings, then click General, then hit Date and Time and choose set automatically so your iPhone's time will automatically change when you cross between time zones, and you won't have to flick your phone to silent overnight.

Did you know the iPhoneX has an all-screen design with the longest battery life ever and the fastest performance, facial authentication, plus studio-quality photos from dual cameras.

The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) is the world's premier business travel and meetings trade organization headquartered in the Washington, D.C. area with operations on six continents. GBTA's 9,000-plus members manage more than $345 billion of global business travel and meetings expenditures annually. GBTA delivers world-class education, events, research, advocacy and media to a growing global network of more than 28,000 travel professionals and 125,000 active contacts. To learn how business travel drives lasting business growth, visit gbta.org.

GBTA is the voice of the global business travel industry. GBTA leadership and members are often sought as experts to comment on wide-ranging issues affecting our industry. They bring to life the latest business travel industry insights, trends, advocacy, events, research and education.

GBTA recently announced the launch of registration for GBTA Convention 2019. This year's Convention, the largest, most comprehensive annual gathering of business travel and meetings managers, meeting planners, procurement professionals and suppliers in the world will be held in Chicago, August 3-7, 2019.

In today's constantly evolving business travel industry, business travelers are demanding mobility in a fast-paced environment, expressing a desire for a more personalized travel experience, and dealing with the risks associated with the current technological, environmental and geopolitical landscape – all leading to new hurdles and opportunities for today's travel professionals. GBTA Convention 2019 marks the 51st edition of The Business Travel Event of the Year. For more than 50 years now, GBTA has provided a platform for managed travel professionals to share new practices, policies and solutions to the industry's greatest issues.

Held at Chicago's McCormick Place, the largest Convention Center in North America, GBTA Convention 2019 will bring together nearly 7,000 business travel professionals from more than 50 countries across the globe. It will feature world-class keynote speakers, more than 175 industry-leading education sessions, the largest business travel expo floor with 400+ exhibiting companies, a wide selection of professional development opportunities and much more, providing attendees the opportunity to enhance their careers and to get business done.

Record high business travel spending is driven by a few dominant markets - namely the US, China and Western Europe, according to the report, which details travel spending in 75 countries, along with the top industries, economic factors and characteristics that influence business travel.

Bleisure is the combination of business and leisure and is used to describe a new trend that is on the rise among business travelers, those who mix business with leisure travel. Bleisure effectively sums up how delegates are including leisure in business trips and Bleisure is expected to be in the top event trends this 2019.

Bleisure trips are rising fast as a common form of travel worldwide, according to a new report from Bridgestreet Global Hospitality published by Skift, The survey, which interviewed 640 respondents, found that 60% said they were more likely now to take bleisure trips today than they were five years ago.

About the same percentage said they had combined business with leisure on their corporate trips, with 30% saying they had added as many as two vacation days to their trips. Those who didn't said they would have if they'd had more time.

But what kind of leisure activities do they embark on? Sightseeing, dining and arts/culture are the top three. 54% of bleisure travelers said they bring family members or significant others. (though this latter category was not defined) with them. 39% do not bring a significant other or family member with them but would like to.

One of the most surprising findings are that 1 in 7 companies already have policies that cover bleisure or bleisure-like travel, undeniably another initiative by companies to keep employees happy and loyal to the company they work for.

As you might guess, Millennials are the demographic which takes the most bleisure trips, given the way they have grown, always aiming at making the most of leisure activities. Close attention should be paid to the fast-growing 25-34 age group - the Millennials, the reports authors say. More dominant in this study than the 35-44 age range, this is a generation that are natural inhabitants of the digital, blurred lifestyle and are very open to bleisure travel.

The report concludes that businesses should be encouraging bleisure travel with nearly four out of five respondees agreeing that adding leisure days to business trips added value to work assignments.

Miriam Rayman says it adds cultural intelligence strategist. The bleisure generation was a particular entrepreneurial type who would turn an evening out over drinks into a networking opportunity.

The folks at Bridgestreet Global Hospitality - a company that provides serviced apartments - short-term rentals with housekeeping and utilities included. They conducted a survey to back up their bleisure claims, even though based on past data, there is not enough information gathered to ascertain if there is an actual distinguished new trend.

According to historic data, there has long been a group of the business travel professionals that have leisure activities onto business trips.

Travel-related business such as Bridgestreet, are obviously eager to appeal to these customers who are willing and able to spend more money per trip than those who like to keep their travel strictly professional. Therefore, marketing neologism such as bleisure can help companies think about how to attract certain groups of customers.

When it comes to the business traveler, adding a few extra personal days on to a business trip can be a fascinating experience. However, not all of corporate travelers have that much flexibility. Whether you need to get back to headquarters after a closing a deal or personal commitments can draw you back and keep you from booking an extra day in a destination, or you just can't afford to pay on your own for these leisure activities, not every business traveler can incorporate leisure into their business trip.

If you are a business traveler, you probably have stored confidential information in either your laptop, smartphone or online email accounts. For that reason, as information is highly valued, security is of extra importance. Not only do you need to be aware of your company's data security, but backing up your work is crucial as well. Laptop users usually overlook the need to back up their own work and this often leads people into a panic when files are lost and they are trying to recover them.

As an employee, your duty is to make sure your files are backed up, your data is safe, and you are handling your work tasks while traveling. Here are some ways to make sure your security and backup strategies are in place as you travel for work.

First, you need to back up. Regular backups are important can be done by purchasing a small UBS drive that connects to your computer. You need to keep this USB drive connected to your computer and setup the backup through Windows or Mac. That way, in the case that your laptop dies or is unavailable, you'll be able to access your files through the USB which can be taken anywhere.

As to security, you need to shut down your computer properly. It is not enough to just shut the screen just because it is annoying to wait for it to shut down. If you only shut down the screen, you are risking your security because anytime a USB is plugged into your laptop while it's still on, your data can be copied onto the flash drive.

Someone might try to steal your data without you even knowing it. This could also happen to mobile phones or tables. Therefore, shut all of your equipment down or set passwords to avoid the risk.

Even though a password is important, you should set up an encryption as it offers even more protection in the case of theft or a loss. If you store customers' data for a law office or insurance company for example, a lost laptop with compromised data can be a disaster. Encrypt all of your laptop, tablet, and any other mobile device's data and back it up to avoid a big problem. This includes the entire physical drive rather than just folders.

After you back up, you have to keep the backup with you wherever you go. For the traveler, a good idea would be to keep it in your hotel room's safe, which is probably the safest option to keep your backup. You can also keep backups online but you need to have firewalls up to block connection requests which can be done with an IT staff member.

Anytime that you make a connection in a hotel, restaurant, cafe, etc, be sure to enable VPN because it's encrypted by default and your data won't be compromised. It's the most secure option compared to the hotel's network, despite it's slower connection.

As an ultimate resource, be sure to keep a powerbank or spare battery with you for your phone, laptop or tablets because you may otherwise be forced to share a charge box station at the airport. Use these tips to stay secure and make traveling not a stressful factor while you run your business.