Helping Attendees Defeat Jet Lag

With wellness a growing component of business events, both planners and suppliers are creating different ways to help attendees feel good before, during, and after meetings.

One of the latest such developments: InterContinental Hotels is partnering with Timeshifter, a mobile app that creates personalized jet lag-mitigation plans for travelers, to offer the service to all hotel guests.

Based on research in sleep and neuroscience, Timeshifter aims to gently transition a traveler's circadian rhythms and decrease fatigue from flying across multiple time zones. The app works off of information a user provides: inbound and outbound travel schedule, the user’s typical sleep hours and productive hours, the time-zone difference between home and the meeting site, and more.

The app then recommends actions to be conducted at specific times in the journey—when to consume or avoid caffeine, when to be exposed to light or avoid light using a sleep mask or sunglasses, and other actions that will minimize jet lag both at the meeting and back home. The app also has a chat feature to assist users with editing their travel itineraries and other questions.

There are 26 InterContinental properties in North America and about 240 others worldwide.