Location, Location and Location - Find Them All Through Your Smartphone Apps

The professional business traveller should never find themselves in the dark. Travelling costs time and money, and a professional should arrive at their destination already acclimatized even though they may never have set foot on the place they are visiting before.

With the advent and increased sophistication of the Smartphone application, this has become a distinct possibility. Nowadays a visitor to any airport, shopping center, and office black or industrial complexes can immediately access important location details up to and including addresses, maps, and phone and Skype numbers amongst other snippets.

There are a number of software companies who have developed applications to fill the information gap for the business traveler. Among the best known are the French company Absysseo, who with their SmartIndoor? application provide maps of most Europe's detailed leading airports. SmartIndoor maps include restaurants, gift shops, information desks, VIP meeting places, gate locations, ATMs, newspaper stands, restrooms and other possible meeting points.

For the intercontinental traveller FLYsmart and Triplit offer a similar range of facilities carrying widespread information on hundreds of airports and locations world-wide. Triplit also take the business trip planning service a step or two forward by actually suggesting planned itineraries, flight times, hotel and car hire information. Travellers who are interested in taking this path can even arrange and reserve their itinerary through Triplit.

One of the biggest traumas that a business traveler can hot is when they arrive at an airport for the first time. The more experienced jet-setters have discovered a handy applications known as Point Inside, which specializes in high tuned indoor navigation, otherwise known real-time location based services (LBS) functionality. Constantly updating a traveller can arrive at an unfamiliar location complete in the knowledge that the information desk they have arranged to meet a local contact hasn't become a coffee bar overnight.

One of the most popular LBS applications is known as Point inside exclusively developed for Apple's iPhone. Totally Wi-Fi compatible, Point Inside will guide its user through any large indoor setting, from airports to office blocks, exhibition centres to shopping malls. Point Inside's claim is that they can provide LBS where Google Maps' eye in the sky cannot go.

With more than U.S. and Canadian 100,000 stores, exit and entry gates, cafes, restaurants, restrooms, and even elevator and escalator points on their application, Point Inside certainly has North America well covered.

The LBS concept is fairly new and developing rapidly, offering some pretty tempting options for the business community. As well as tracking locations indoors, LBS applications can also be tweaked to such important features as vehicle tracking and local weather and traffic conditions.

Most of the leading LBS applications are funded through locally based or mobile commerce, where discount coupons are on offer to business travellers, in restaurants, hotels, car hire or any other facility that the modern business traveler will be looking for. Just like the commissar of old an LBS application can even provide information on local shows, movies, events and attractions that will mean passing a pleasant evening in an unfamiliar town or city, and even arrange a discount in the process!