Rachel Bateson, a director of Yorkshire-based Sterling Graphic, was in China for a meeting. The only problem was when she got there, she realised she had left her laptop at the airport. "And I didn't speak any Mandarin." But instead of freaking out, she phoned CallUma, a service whose tagline is "When you need help abroad..." Soon her laptop was located and couriered to her in time for the meeting. "When I think about what not having the package would have cost me," she says, "I'm more than happy with the service."

Keith Mulholland, a vice-president of Celerant Consulting, had a different problem - a diesel car full of the wrong kind of fuel in Spain and a flight to catch. "The car was completely kippered and the four of us needed to arrange a taxi and a late check-in." But once again, a call smoothed things out with the hire company, which arranged transport and they made their flight.

CallUma is one of a growing number of services to help travellers who find themselves in tricky situations abroad.

A yearly fee buys everything from translation services and help with emergencies to repatriation if things go wrong. Globalisation means that increasing numbers of business travellers are regularly visiting ever-more distant destinations, especially China. Moreover, business trips have become far shorter. Whereas once unlucky travellers might have had a few days to sort out problems, now they're unlikely to be in a country for more than a few days.

Hence the need for services such as CallUma. "We have a lot of problems with lost luggage," says Tony Partridge, chief executive. "We've translated at local police stations when people have been victims of theft and we deal with a lot of laptops and PDAs; the number of business travellers who lose them is phenomenal.In one instance a client was at a meeting in Germany where the translator didn't show up. He called us and the entire meeting was translated over the phone."

Such services are not just for emergencies. Michael Sinclair, marketing director of chinaONEcall says: "A customer of ours was on holiday in a Chinese village full of jewellery shops and thought some of the products would be of interest to a friend who ran a jewellery business. He called us and arranged to have samples sent over. Now the friend is importing from the business."

Language assistance isn't the only help out there for the hapless business traveller. The Foreign Office used to suggest you carried several photocopies of all your important documents, such as passports or credit cards. But in these days of identity theft many question the wisdom of having three copies of personal information in separate pieces of luggage. To this end, a company called Omneport offers a secure electronic storage space where you can store scans of all your key travel documents such as passports and tickets on their servers, giving you access to everything you've lost. "You just log on to our secure space on the web," says Gulliver Immink, managing director.

What is perhaps even more interesting is that many companies rightly worry about sending employees to places such as Lagos with anything at all on their laptops. Using a service like Omneport, Mr Immink explains, means that you can take a laptop with virtually no data on it whatsoever with you. You download the files when you need them and erase them you are finished; if you are working on them you upload again. "That way, if the laptop gets stolen or if there's a natural disaster, you don't even have to think about rescuing it or worry about the information."

Others are geared towards prevention. Fisher's Travel SOS has an online service, Hermes which, says Julian Fisher, managing director, provides business travellers with intelligence and e-mail alerts so that they can make decisions about the risks at their destinations. "People who are busy working don't have the time to read up like tourists might," Mr Fisher says.

雷切尔•贝特森(Rachel Bateson)是总部位于约克郡的Sterling Graphic公司的一名董事，不久前曾去中国参加一个会议。她到达会场时遇到的唯一一个麻烦是，她意识到自己将笔记本电脑忘在机场了。"而我一句中国话都不会说。"但她并没有惊慌失措，而是给CallUma打了一个电话。这是一家服务公司，它的口号是"当你在国外需要帮助时......"。很快，她的笔记本就被找到并快递到她手中，正好赶上开会。她说："当我想到丢了这包东西会给我带来多大代价的时候，我对这种服务的存在岂止是感到开心！"

基思•穆赫兰(Keith Mulholland)是咨询公司Celerant Consulting的副总裁，他遇到的问题不太一样：他乘坐的柴油轿车在西班牙加错了油，而且他还要赶飞机。"那辆车整个都在冒烟，我们四个人需要安排一辆出租车，并且需要安排迟登机手续。"不过，这次还是一个电话就解决了全部问题。服务公司安排了车，他们赶上了飞机。

CallUma是日益增多的此类服务公司之一。它们的工作，就是帮助在国外陷入各种麻烦处境的旅行者。

只要付上一年的费用，就可以在遇到麻烦的情况下得到各种服务，包括语言翻译、紧急援助乃至护送归国。全球化意味着越来越多的商业旅行者会经常访问那些极为遥远的地方，尤其是中国。更重要的是，商业旅程也越来越紧凑。在以往，那些倒霉的旅客可能会花好几天的时间来解决问题，可现在，他们却不大可能在一个国家滞留数日。

因此也就产生了对CallUma这类公司的需求。该公司首席执行官托尼•帕特里奇(Tony Partridge)表示："我们遇到了很多丢行李的事情。当人们不幸被盗时，我们就在当地的警局做翻译。我们处理过许多找笔记本电脑和掌上电脑的事情。商业旅行者丢失这些东西的数量简直惊人。有一次，一位客户在德国开会，翻译没有到场。他给我们打电话，整场会议都是通过电话来翻译的。"

这种服务并不仅是为了应急。华译通(chinaONEcall)的营销经理迈克尔•辛克莱(Michael Sinclair)表示："我们的一位客户去中国的乡村度假。那里到处是珠宝店，他觉得自己有一位经营珠宝的朋友会对其中有些产品感兴趣。他给我们打电话，并安排发送一些样品。现在，这位朋友正在做这方面的进口生意。"

语言支援并不是遭遇不顺的商业旅行者所能得到的唯一帮助。外事部门过去曾建议大家多带几份所有重要文件的复印件--例如护照或信用卡。但在身份可能被盗用的今天，许多人质疑，将个人信息的三份复印件放在不同的行李箱里，这样做是不是明智。为了达到这个目标，一家名为Omneport的公司提供了一个安全的电子储存空间，你可以将所有重要的旅行文件，例如护照和机票的扫描文件储存在公司的服务器上。这样，你就可以重新获得丢失的所有文件了。公司董事总经理格列佛•伊明克(Gulliver Immink)表示："你只需要上网登录到我们的安全空间就好。"

也许更有趣的是，许多公司确实对派遣员工带着存有所有信息的笔记本电脑去拉各斯（尼日利亚首都）之类的地方感到担心。伊明克解释道，通过使用Omneport这样的服务，你就可以随身带上一本根本没存储任何数据的笔记本电脑。在需要文件的时候，你就下载；用完了之后可以删除。如果你修改过了，还可以上传。"这样的话，如果笔记本被盗，或是出现自然灾害，你不必想着把它抢救回来，也不用担心信息泄露。"

其它一些公司则注重于防范。Fisher's Travel SOS公司有一项名为"赫尔墨斯"(Hermes)的网上服务。公司董事总经理朱利安•费舍(Julian Fisher)表示，"赫尔墨斯"为商业旅行者提供情报以及警示邮件，这样，他们就可以对目的地的风险状况做出判断。费舍认为："忙于工作的人没时间像旅游者那样去看很多资料。"
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