Eat, Sleep, Fly, Repeat: Meal Patterns Among Swedish Business Travelers

Abstract

Over half of the annual guests at Swedish hotels are supplied by the corporate sector. These guests are made up of individuals who travel for meetings, conferences, or presentations as a part of their job. Access to meals while travelling is essential and introduces added complexity to business travelers' everyday lives. These meals, and the pattern in which they are consumed, are part of the individual traveler's personal and group identities. Therefore, the aim of this article is to study if business travelers deviate from their habitual meal patterns and, if so, what changes they make. To further the understanding of this group's meal patterns, a questionnaire was created and distributed. It was answered by 538 self-identified business travelers. These business travelers were made up of three groups: solo travelers, group travelers, and individuals who traveled both in groups as well as alone. Pearson's chi-squared test was used to analyze differences in actions related to the meal pattern between groups. The analysis showed that changes in the meal pattern did occur in some instances. However, the majority of the business travelers adhered to their habitual meal pattern while adjusting their behavior depending on the time of day. Managers of catering suppliers gaining insight into the meal habits of business travelers could help to ease an otherwise stressful situation by supplying meals, as a context, that fit with the business traveler's habitual patterns and meal contexts.