Calling Business travelers age 20-35!

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Viewing 7 posts - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

  • JessT
    Participant

    I’m doing some research on how young people approach business travel differently. If you’re 20-35 years old and could take a moment to answer these questions it would be super helpful!

    What hotels do you use and why?
    What things don’t you like about business traveling?
    Do you take opportunities to do other things while you’re in new locations during business travel? If yes, what do you do?


    miningguy
    Participant

    Hi Jess, I’m 34 and 12 days so I guess I qualify. I run my own business which is a self funded startup in the mining sector. We are 3 strong and travel about 50-70% of the time. Travel is very much centred around our customer’s travel policy.

    What hotels do I use? I normally travel to quite ‘exotic’ places where the chains aren’t always prevalent – if they are then its an outrageously priced Hilton in the capital city. Regardless, I tend to prefer boutique hotels and those with a bit of character. The big killer for me however is poor WiFi. I work in a very specialised IT sector and often, bizarrely, the chain hotels are worse with restrictive WiFi that prevents many VPN connections.

    What don’t I like about travel? Queuing, waiting in line at customs, flying through most US airports, being forced to fly economy about 50% of the time. Also, dealing with the appalling service in Economy in some carriers (Iberia being one of them where biz is great, but in economy they treat customers with Ryanair like disdain). I also resent being forced to pay for water on a number of the legacy carriers including I think soon BA. Did i mention queuing?

    Do I do other activities when I travel? Yes! I will always try to spend time during the layover basically acting like a backpacker again 🙂

    Hope that helps


    FLauditor
    Participant

    Hi JessT,

    I just hit 36 so don’t qualify, however for last 5 years I have travelled across the world in my 30’s in all cabin’s, economy business and first class, as I work in airline consultancy. 60+ airlines in total so far.
    Hopefully I can offer some help in answer to your questions below:

    What hotels do you use and why?

    I choose a varied range of hotels, I actually run a website where I review hotels as a side hobby- with 250+ at the moment across all continents. From Mandarin Oriental and Shangri-la to 2 star hotels like Ibis and unique places in SE Asia or Pacific.
    It all depends on the city and budget. I read and research hotels in much detail using trip advisor and what budget allows on a certain trip plus obviously the conveniences to my needs. However I am always looking for an something unique about a hotel, specially when it offers some innovative experience or why it gets so highly rated -since I naturally enjoy reviewing them.
    Stand out hotels I really like though is the Citizen M model as well as some of the boutique hotels in SE Asia.
    I used to work for high-end individual boutique hotels in Miami beach so I like to see something different from the main chains. However within the chains, there are varying products that I also like to test out. I suppose I choose hotels to test the experience so I can review them as I am quite passionate about hotels, since much of time is in them.

    What things don’t you like about business traveling?

    I don’t like the effects it has on the body, putting on weight, the affects on my sleeping, the lack of routine in life but I probably fly more than most (more than 200 flights a year). It’s obviously exhausting and quite lonely with constant flying but it also has many high points.

    Do you take opportunities to do other things while you’re in new locations during business travel? If yes, what do you do?

    When there is not meetings, I tend to only get 24 hours overnights in places. I do push it a bit and fight the jet lag and explore. I like to take photos of street art and try to feel the vibe of the place. I seek out interesting sights in which sometimes takes a lot of effort to get to.
    My job is much like cabin crew with much of my work in the air, so when in cities or places, I have my alone time to explore and I do make the most of it. As I frequent places more often over the years I get into more of a routine of what I do there, say in NY or HK, I frequent my favoured markets, restaurants, shopping areas etc and places like LA I’m always exploring by car, Sydney I like to just walk about. I do more so often now hire cars to get out to see the countryside. Some places like Asia, South America I engage with people more than Europe & US. Asia & the west coast of US, I love to relax, whether on a beach or a forest walk exploring some area’s or a just visiting a Japanese spa or going to national parks. I make the most of my time in places as that is my passion (along with airlines and hotels) and one of the reasons I continue to do my job.

    Hope that helps.


    summerfly
    Participant

    I’m 33, travel all over Europe, North America and Russia.

    I don’t always get to choose the hotel but when I do it’s for central location or within walking distance to where I need to be. I prefer classical decoration, view from room, good restaurant and swimming pool/spa. In the USA/Canada I like to be near a whole foods market which is often nicer, cheaper and healthier than room service.

    I dislike boutique hotels with disappearing bathrooms. I first noticed this trend 8 years ago in a modern hotel in Poland where the bathroom walls were glass and since then I’ve been to hotels where the bathroom is integrated into the room.

    Other dislikes include waiting times at security & immigration, crowded trains and falling standards in inflight service (even in premium classes).


    Tom Otley
    Keymaster

    Hello everyone,

    While in no way wishing to discourage you from helping students with this sort of thing, we are currently being bombarded with requests on the forum for you to fill in these surveys.

    Please be careful.

    I am also deleting many duplicate threads requesting similar information, and blocking multiple hotmail address etc… which have been set up for this purpose.

    If it’s all on the forum, then it’s probably safe, but if they try and take it offline or send you links to go to sites you don’t recognise, please be aware we don’t know who these people are, they haven’t requested our permission to do this, and we don’t know whether they are students or market researchers or consultants or scammers.


    JessT
    Participant

    [quote quote=775077]

    If it’s all on the forum, then it’s probably safe, but if they try and take it offline or send you links to go to sites you don’t recognise, please be aware we don’t know who these people are, they haven’t requested our permission to do this, and we don’t know whether they are students or market researchers or consultants or scammers.
    [/quote]

    Dear Mr. Otley, I assure you that I am a student, I study graphic design at University of Hertfordshire. The reason quite a few people might have turned to this forum with similar questions is probably because D&AD (which is the biggest design awards in the UK and possibly Europe) have set a student brief where the task is to come up with a new concept for Crowne Plaza targeting young business travelers. In order to do this we need to find out what this target-group needs and this forum is a very good place to look.

    I’m sure you do get quite a lot of scammers and it’s good that you care for the users of this forum, I’m simply offering a possible explanation to why these questions might have suddenly become popular. Thank you for not deleting my post, I’d be happy to prove who I am to you if you wish 🙂

    All the best
    Jess


    JessT
    Participant

    [quote quote=775014]I am always looking for an something unique about a hotel, specially when it offers some innovative experience or why it gets so highly rated -since I naturally enjoy reviewing them.
    Stand out hotels I really like though is the Citizen M model as well as some of the boutique hotels in SE Asia.
    [/quote]

    Hi, thank you for your reply!
    Do you have any examples of hotels offering something unique, or innovative experiences? What is it that they offer? It sounds very interesting! 🙂

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