Abstract
Business travellers make up a large part of the customer base for the Swedish hospitality industry, accounting for 54% of the occupancy rate of Swedish hotels in 2018. Yet, very little is known about their meal habits while being at the destination of a business trip. This, even though the handling of meals in an environment that is less known to the traveller could add to the complexity of everyday life. Therefore, this study is aimed to explore actions performed by business travellers at the destination of travel as part of their meal practice with the purpose of elucidating the meal habits of this group. The research is theoretically framed within the context of social identity theory and social practice theory. A questionnaire was filled out by 538 Swedish business travellers recruited by means of self-sampling; 77% of the respondents were men, and 77% were above 45 years of age. The majority of the respondents, 67%, travelled over 50 days per annum, and 59% were located in the highest income quartile. The analysis of the data generated a general overview of the actions performed in relation to the meal, while also showing differences in actions taken based on income and gender. Women were significantly more price conscious than men and to a larger extent used technical assistance to find somewhere to eat. When travelling alone they also reported eating faster than at home and bringing back food and eat at the hotel room more often than men did. Men, in contrast, exhibited an inclination towards seeking social contexts to insert themselves in during dinners when travelling alone, as to be able to eat together with other people. The, relatively, lower income group showed more price consciousness as well as used the help of technical assistance to find somewhere to eat.
Highlights
Each year, 13.3 million hotel nights are bought by the corporate sector in Sweden, according to the official accommodation statistics, which makes up 54% of the total occupancy rate
The first draft of the questionnaire was discussed with a reference group of scholars from food and tourism related dis ciplines, before it was sent on a pilot run to eight business travellers
That is, presenting how the responding business travellers acted in relation to their meals while travelling alone (Fig. 1) and while travelling in the company of someone else (Fig. 2)
Summary
13.3 million hotel nights are bought by the corporate sector in Sweden, according to the official accommodation statistics, which makes up 54% of the total occupancy rate With each of these overnight stays comes the necessity for the hospitality industry to supply meals for the business travellers. Very little is known about the business travellers’ meals, e.g. the rationale behind the participation in meals qua context, as they have not been the explicit focus within the meal related literature. Exploration of those meals could be important for service providers within the hospitality industry as well as for food studies researchers. To handle this emerged complexity business travellers are known to create strategies to handle their work life, e.g. by minimising the time they spend at a destination (Gustafson, 2012b), trying to manage family life while being away from home (Lassen, 2010; Saarenpa ̈a, 2016), or by adapting their meal pat terns while travelling to better suit their situation and situational identity (Sundqvist et al, 2020)
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