Road Warrior - free phones from Eccleston Hotel, visas for business, priority for car renters, world air traffic increases

Hotel supplies smartphones for visitors' stay Behind the façade of a grade II-listed building four minutes from Victoria station in London, the Eccleston Square Hotel is one of city's most high-tech properties.

High-speed wifi is standard, rooms have iPad2s, SkyTV on the television and free mini- bar with Nespresso coffee. Beds are super luxurious Hastens massage beds.

Added to all these extras, the hotel is now supplying guests with Handy smartphones for their stay.

The mobiles will have free calls within the UK, to the United States, various European countries and unlimited browsing. Rates at the Eccleston Square Hotel are modest by London standards and start at £154.

Big increases for airlines across all major markets Air traffic figures for the world's major markets all show big increases last year. Chinese airlines carried 435.5 million passengers, an increase of 11.1 per cent on 2014.

In the United States, traffic was a record high of 895.5 million domestic and international passengers, up 5 per cent. In Europe, traffic grew by an average of 5.2 per cent and was a staggering 1.95 billion passengers.

Twenty per cent of airports in Europe achieved double- digit growth last year.

Olivier Jankovec, the director general of Airports Council International – Europe, earlier this year put the strong growth down to growth of low-cost airlines. “EU airports generally performed extremely well, despite Germany and France being impacted by airline and ATC [air traffic control] strikes and the Paris terror attacks.”

Car rental priority loyalty service to be extended National Car Rental will be extending its priority service for business travellers to 25 European airports including Dublin.

Priority Service is available to members of the emerald club loyalty programme.

Members can bypass the rental counter and go straight to the booth in the car park, where they will have a choice of two vehicles. This service is also available at some of popular sun resorts in Spain and France. Business visa processing facilities available Getting visas for travelling on business can be a frustrating process.

The Irish Exporters Association has a consular department that can help you through the visa minefield.

The consular department will be able to answer questions about visas for both European Union and non-EU passport holders. It will personally lodge visa applications on your behalf here and in other countries.

Visa-processing fees cost from €75. Details from Niamh Devlin, 01-661 2182, irishexporters.ie