Winging It: Surveys say business travel can be fun

College commencement speakers often urge bright-eyed graduates to broaden their horizons by traveling the world. As it turns out, at least some of the graduates must have taken the advice, become business travelers, and learned to enjoy the opportunities for exploration and relaxation while on the road.

Although business trips can be seen as joyless occasions, best remembered for flight delays and lonely meals, two surveys released last week indicate that it's not usually that way.

Many business travelers take advantage of the chance to discover new places, and others increasingly are stretching trips into mini-vacations with family or friends, the research found.

One frequent user of Philadelphia International Airport, Steve Lapin, a Melrose Park sales executive, says that's exactly what he does on a few of the 30 to 35 business trips a year he makes. Lapin belongs to multiple airline, hotel and rental-car frequent-traveler programs and uses his miles and points to pay for his wife and two children to join him on longer trips.

"When I go on extended business trips, six or seven days, my family is there," he said. "If I go to Los Angeles, we may go to Disneyland. My company is already paying for me, so it works out very nicely."

The studies were done by two of the major online booking services, one by Egencia, the new name for the corporate-travel division of Expedia Inc., and the other by Orbitz for Business, the corporate-travel unit of that company.

The Egencia survey was the more comprehensive, reporting results from 2,400 interviews with travelers from the United States, Canada, Britain, France and Germany who make at least three business trips a year.

The survey found that two-thirds of the travelers enjoy business trips, and 85 percent of them like their jobs

because

traveling is a required part. American business travelers are more likely to enjoy the travel they must do - 75 percent vs. 66 percent for the other nationalities.

Egencia officials divided the survey participants into six broad demographic or psychographic categories dubbed "tribes."

The largest group, comprising 39 percent of the total, are "experience-hungry" travelers who schedule as much free time as they can on business trips so they can explore a city or region. They bring a camera, find a city map, and may visit a museum or other cultural attraction or attend a sporting event.

More French travelers (44 percent) fall into this category than Americans, Canadians, Britons or Germans, the study determined.

Almost a quarter of the travelers, 23 percent, were identified as "hyper-connected," the type who must travel with a Wi-Fi-friendly laptop and a BlackBerry. These folks are more likely to be Americans, which came as no surprise to Rob Greyber, Egencia's senior vice president for North America.

"I think that's consistent with the pace of business travel within the U.S.," Greyber said. "They would rather be checking their e-mail or using the phone than going to a baseball game or visiting a museum."

Another tribe identified by the Egencia research is the "cost-conscious," 14 percent of the total, who tend to work for companies with fewer than 50 employees and look for ways to get the most value for their travel expenses.

A quarter of all those queried fall into three smaller groups. Seven percent are "home-focused" and enjoy being away the least. Six percent are "seasoned travelers" who make at least 25 trips a year and for whom travel is a core part of their routine. The smallest group, 4 percent, were classified as "green" travelers; they tend to fly only if there is no other means of transport and have often thought of investing in efforts to reduce CO2 emissions to offset the environmental impact of their travel.

The Orbitz for Business survey, done in cooperation with Business Traveler magazine, discovered that rising airfares and hotel and rental-car rates are prompting more people to combine business and leisure trips.

Seventy-two percent of the 450 people interviewed said they had extended a trip by adding personal time to it, and 81 percent said they expect to extend a work trip in the next six months. Almost half the travelers (43 percent) said they had taken a spouse, partner or friend on a typical business trip that was not extended into a vacation.

"Everybody's talking about companies downsizing and how it's harder to take a vacation," said Jim Cohn, vice president of Orbitz for Business. "So one of the easiest ways to take a vacation is to have family or friends tag along on a business trip."

As one would expect, adding a leisure component to a business trip is most likely to happen if the travel is to a popular tourist destination: San Francisco, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Chicago, Orlando and Washington, and for overseas travelers, London and Paris, the survey found.

Tell us what you do to make your business travel more tolerable.