You ever notice that the first budget to get cut when companies are tightening their belts is the travel budget? Which is interesting considering the fact that if you are planning your trips effectively, you know, traveling with a specific, actionable goal in mind, then by sacrificing that budget you are giving up opportunities to grow your business.

Its been my experience that while lots of work can be done virtually, deals are almost always done in person. Meeting someone face to face has a way of getting you over a lot of red tape and around a lot of misunderstandings.

Despite this fact, some businesses don’t really have a choice in the matter. At the end of the day, operational expenses trump everything else and if you can’t keep the lights on you definitely can’t send your marketing team on a three-week conference tour across the eastern seaboard.

How do you get around this problem? Well, one just happened to find its way into my mailbox a few nights ago from the good people at IZEA.

British Airways is running (and sponsoring) an essay contest and they are offering 100 companies an opportunity to win a Business Opportunity Grant. What is a “Business Opportunity Grant?” it’s a prize package that is pretty darn impressive.

• British Airways airfare for 10 round-trip Club World business class flights.
• 5 free British Airways World Cargo freight shipments of up to 500 kilos to worldwide destinations
• $1000 toward accommodation at Courtyard by Marriott
• 5 Regus Businessworld Gold Cards providing access to business lounges worldwide
• Canon PIXMA MX860 Wireless Office All-In-One Printer (yea, I’m not really sure either).

The application deadline is September 30th (you probably should start applying right now) and you will have to do a bit of work (create an account, fill out a little mini-survey, write a few essays about your business goals) but to have thousands of dollars worth of travel expenses covered this seems like a small price to pay.

Do I see any downside to this one?

There is no cost and significantly less data-mining than similar contests and the packages they are offering are really quite impressive. If you are an international traveler this is almost a no brainer, even if you only fly domestically this package might be the opportunity you were looking for to expand your client base overseas.

Take some time to enter the contest and tell me how it went. They are giving away 100 grants so if you win, be sure to leave something in the comments.