Social media has so broadly changed the landscape of business travel in just the last couple of years that it is difficult to imagine how George Clooney’s character, Ryan Bingham, the frequent-flier businessman in the film “Up in the Air,” survived without using Foursquare to check in at the hotel lobby bar. “I have lived on the road for most of my life,” said Andy Lark, 42, chief marketing officer for Dell’s business unit worldwide, who travels almost every week and internationally every three weeks and uses many different social tools. “They make people more accessible, places more accessible and all the possibilities of travel so much more exciting. And it is as much about devices, like smartphones and wireless networks, as it is about social networks.” Mr. Lark said traveling for business could be a lonely experience and social media tools had helped change that. “We’ve gone from a world where everyone sits on the plane and doesn’t talk to one another and then heads to a hotel room, where it can be hard to understand what to do next. Suddenly, you are plugged into your own networks and you are getting tips and recommendations. Everyone becomes a navigator for you.” He recalled that on a trip to Hong Kong, he checked into Foursquare to discover that two old friends from San Francisco were visiting at the same time; they were able to get together for a drink. During a recent trip to India, he arrived around 4 a.m. at the Leela Palace hotel in Bangalore, and checked into Foursquare, thinking his wife would be the only one to see what he described as a cheeky comment, wondering where he might find a decent cup of coffee in the predawn darkness. To his surprise, he got an immediate response, recommending a nearby coffee bar. It was from a Dell customer, up early to play golf, someone he had never met in person who had seen his coffee question pop up in his LinkedIn account. It turned out that Mr. Lark had linked his social accounts so one post appeared in multiple places.