Flying high on business travel needs

Business travel is not glamorous. It is unhealthy, exhausting and lonely. So says an academic paper — and many business travellers will swiftly agree.

This is partly because these downsides are true, but mainly because business travel provokes envy from friends, family and, especially, colleagues left behind in the office. And those of us who manage to get away do not want to let on that, in spite of the drawbacks, business travel really is something to be envied.

Before examining why this is, let us look at the case against, as presented by Scott Cohen of Surrey University and Stefan Gossling, who teaches at two Swedish universities.

The most frequently discussed business travel problem is jet lag. The two researchers say its effects go beyond the disruption of sleep and digestion. “Jet lag can even switch off genes that are linked to the immune system, thereby raising the risk of having a heart attack or stroke,” they write.

Flying, whether frequently or occasionally, increases the risk of deep-vein thrombosis. The writers quote an alarming paper that says that one in 10 travellers on long-haul flights develops symptomless deep-vein thrombosis “from which there is the potential to develop fatal blood clots”.

Even worse, they say, passengers who fly 85,000 miles a year are exposed to radiation that takes them past the regulatory limit. Commercial aircrew are exposed to more radiation than nuclear power workers.

Spouses and children often feel abandoned. The traveller feels guilty. Relations with the local community suffer.

A 1997 study of medical insurance submissions by 10,000 World Bank staff found that those who travelled made nearly three times as many claims for psychological problems as those who stayed at home.

There is the rush to finish work before leaving for a trip, the hassle, the delays, the “acutely felt differences in temperature, humidity, altitude or pollution, as well as different smells, sounds and tastes”.

It sounds dreadful. So why have I never, in decades of business travel, lost that sense of anticipation as I wait at the boarding gate, and why, in spite of the stiffness of economy flying, do I never tire of arriving to those different sounds, sights, alphabets, as well as glorious, smothering, hot, still air — so welcome if you live in London?

Because travel, especially if you have a safe home to go back to, is an adventure, and business travel, with someone else paying, is a privilege.

Much in the research paper is true, but most of it applies to excessive travelling, the sort that does not allow you to recover from the last trip before leaving for the next one.

There are three big advantages to business travel. First, it takes you to places you would not visit on holiday. Without work trips, I doubt I would have experienced the manic futurism of Shanghai or the unanticipated stylishness of Bogota. I do not think I would have made it to Chicago, surely America’s most undersold city.

Second, business travel is, if you plan it sensibly, less tiring and more rewarding than the leisure variety. You have a schedule of meetings arranged, which gives some structure to the days.

Rather than rushing around trying to see everything, as you would on holiday, you can use spare hours to visit an art gallery, walk around the city or, as I once did in Cork, hail a taxi and ask the driver to show you some interesting places.

There are short trips where you see nothing but the airport and people’s offices, but any experienced traveller knows how to take that slightly earlier flight there or late flight back to give you some extra time without bothering the expenses department.

In any case, I have never understood the problem with visiting people’s offices. This is the third and most important advantage of business travel: unlike on holiday, you really do meet the locals.

You may do this in their office. You may even meet your local colleagues in your own subsidiary’s office. But after talking to them about work, you can ask them about themselves, their families, their lives and their country.

If you have a meal with them, they will probably take you somewhere you would not have found on your own.

That does not mean we should dismiss critical research papers. We should treasure them. The more our employers think we are having a hard time, the less likely they are to stop us travelling.

— Financial Times