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Business Travel from the Travellers

Perspective: Stress, Stimulation and

NormalizationPer Gustafson

a

aInstitute for Housing and Urban Research, Uppsala University,Uppsala, Sweden.

Published online: 11 Apr 2013.

To cite this article:Per Gustafson (2014) Business Travel from the Travellers Perspective: Stress,Stimulation and Normalization, Mobilities, 9:1, 63-83, DOI: 10.1080/17450101.2013.784539

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Business Travel from the TravellersPerspective: Stress, Stimulation and

Normalization

PER GUSTAFSON

Institute for Housing and Urban Research, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

ABSTRACT For growing numbers of businesspeople, managers and public of cials, workinvolves travel. This study investigates what business travel means to travellers. What aretheir experiences of travel and what are the consequences of travel for their professionaland personal lives? Qualitative interviews with frequent business travellers and corporatetravel managers show that travel may be both stressful and stimulating. It may be associatedwith physical and psychological strain, increased workloads and dif culties in balancingwork and private life, but also with enriching experiences, social and professional statusand a cosmopolitan identity. It may also promote travellers professional careers. However,in some respects, an ongoing normalization of travel seems to have moderating effects onboth stress and stimulation among travellers. This normalization occurs on three different

levels: the societal, organizational and individual.

KEY WORDS:Business travel, Normalization, Stress, Careers, Mobility capital

Introduction

The past few decades have witnessed a considerable increase in business travel,

especially among managers and professionals (Doyle and Nathan 2001; Davidson

and Cope 2003). Economic and political globalization, growing numbers of multi-unit companies, and organizational trends towards work in project teams as well as

more intense inter-rm cooperation have increased the need for communication and

interaction between people working in different locations. Improved infrastructures

for mobility and deregulation of air travel have further fuelled the growth of

business travel (Aguilra 2008; Millar and Salt 2008; Beaverstock et al. 2009).

Expanding business travel has consequences in several areas. The global value of

business travel expenditure is estimated at around USD 900 billion annually,

Correspondence Address: Per Gustafson, Institute for Housing and Urban Research, Uppsala Univer-

sity, Box 514, SE-75120 Uppsala, Sweden. Email: [email protected]

Mobilities, 2014

Vol. 9, No. 1, 6383, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2013.784539

2014 Taylor & Francis


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making it an important industry worldwide (World Travel and Tourism Council

2011). Employers are becoming aware of the importance of business travel, and

other forms of work-related mobility, to work organization and corporate costs.

The growth of business travel has therefore been accompanied by increasing profes-

sionalization of corporate travel management, especially in large companies with

extensive international travel (Lubbe 2003; Holma 2009; Gustafson 2012a).

Business travel also has consequences for the traveller. Research on working con-

ditions, work organization and occupational health has mainly investigated travel-

related stress due to poor working conditions, heavy workloads and absence from

home and family (Fisher and Stoneman 1998; Espino et al. 2002; Ivancevich,

Konopaske, and DeFrank 2003). More recent studies, often inspired by mobility

research, have introduced new perspectives on business travel by treating travel as

an important activity in its own right, by examining the individual and organiza-

tional rationales underlying travel and other business-related mobilities, and by

exploring how such mobilities depend on, but also produce and reproduce, variousresources and abilities (Millar and Salt 2008; Beaverstock et al. 2009; Kesselring

and Vogl 2010). This research has revealed a broader range of consequences

beyond stress and strain. Positive experiences such as a sense of personal develop-

ment (Welch and Worm 2006), respite from the normality of everyday life, work

and family obligations (Westman, Etzion, and Chen 2009), and lifestyle and identity

issues (Lassen 2010) are suggestive of the need for a more nuanced understanding

of the personal implications of work-related mobility.

This study investigates business travel from the travellers perspective. Qualitative

interviews explore what travel means to frequent business travellers and the tangible

consequences of travel for travellers personal and professional lives. The study thuscontributes to research on mobility and business travel in three important ways.

First, it demonstrates the multiple meanings and consequences frequent business tra-

vel may have. Earlier studies have primarily focussed on one or a few aspects,

while the full range of implications has rarely been acknowledged and examined.

Second, drawing on mobility research and the concept of mobility capital, the

study highlights the fact that intense travel requires resources, but also that travel-

lers may acquire or gain access to resources by travelling. In particular, it identies

a number of mechanisms through which business travel may promote travellersprofessional careers. Third, the study develops the concept of normalization, also

derived from mobility research. The interviews show that business travel may be

trying and stressful in some ways, yet stimulating and rewarding in others. In

certain respects, however, both stress and stimulation seem to be moderated by an

ongoing normalization of travel. This normalization occurs on three different levels:

the societal, organizational and individual.

Working Conditions and Business Travel Stress

Business travel today is an important form of mobility and an important part ofwork for many employees, both in private companies and in public sector organiza-

tions (Doyle and Nathan 2001; Welch and Worm 2006; Faulconbridge et al. 2009).

Until recently, however, business travel and its implications for travellers havereceived relatively little attention in the literature. To begin with, research on work

organization and working conditions has produced a limited body of research on

64 P. Gustafson


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the impact of frequent business travel, often emphasizing the stressful aspects of

travel.

Key insights from this research are summarized by Ivancevich, Konopaske, and

DeFrank (2003), who suggest a theoretical model for understanding how travel may

contribute to work-related stress (see also DeFrank, Konopaske, and Ivancevich

2000). For individual travellers, the model distinguishes between pre-trip, during-

trip and post-trip stressors, moderators of stress and potential outcomes. In short,

travel-related stressors include delegating work to others and making home arrange-

ments before the journey, personal safety concerns, accumulated work at the home

ofce, travel delays and other unexpected incidents during the journey, as well as

unmet family responsibilities. Potentially negative outcomes range from anxiety and

frustration, fatigue and physical or mental health problems, to job dissatisfaction,

poor work performance, absenteeism and the desire to quit. According to the model,

these effects may be moderated by social and managerial support, travel arrange-

ments and individual personality traits (Ivancevich, Konopaske, and DeFrank 2003).Ivancevich and colleagues do not provide systematic empirical evidence for their

model, but the relationship between business travel and stress has been shown in

several other studies (Fisher and Stoneman 1998; Welch and Worm 2006; Westman,

Etzion, and Chen 2009). Workfamily conict is often particularly problematic. The

absence from home may cause stress and psychosocial problems in both travellers

and their families (Striker, Dimberg, and Liese 2000; Espino et al. 2002; Black and

Jamieson 2007). Several studies indicate that travel may be more stressful for

women than for men and that women are more likely to restrict their business travel

due to family obligations (Gustafson 2006; Bergstrm Casinowsky 2013). Stress

related to tight airline connections, missed connections, lost luggage and so forth,as well as a range of health and safety concerns, are also reported (Welch and

Worm 2006). Moreover, travel is often associated with long working hours and

heavy workloads both during journeys and on return to the ofce as

well as with difcult working conditions (Doyle and Nathan 2001; Espino et al.

2002; Gustafson 2012b).

In a few cases, research on work and working conditions has acknowledged that

travel may also have positive implications for the traveller. For example, Westman,

Etzion, and Chen (2009) have shown how travel may offer respite from everyday

obligations both at home and at work, and Welch and Worm (2006) have high-

lighted experiences of variety, novelty, thrill and personal development in conjunc-

tion with business travel. Yet the predominant impression given by the research in

this eld is that frequent business travel causes stress and strain, with potentially

harmful consequences for travellers and their families. The focus of this research on

managerial implications and ways of moderating travel-related stress is a strength,

but the consequent focus on the negative effects of travel is also a limitation.

Mobility Research and Business Travel

Research inspired by the mobilities turn may broaden the perspective in several

respects. Over the past decade, the work of Urry and colleagues has established

mobility as a eld of both theoretical and empirical interest to social scientists byshowing how different forms of mobility are shaping social life and social organiza-

tion (Larsen, Urry, and Axhausen 2006; Sheller and Urry 2006; Urry 2007). A

number of insights from mobility research are useful for understanding and

Business Travel from the Travellers Perspective 65


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investigating contemporary business travel (Faulconbridge et al. 2009; Kesselring

and Vogl 2010).

On a macro-level, mobility research suggests a broad concept of mobility,

including not only physical travel but also mobilities enabled by, for example,

telephone communication, video conferencing, email and the Internet. It highlights

how social organization and interaction depend on an interplay between corporeal

and technologically mediated mobilities (Larsen, Urry, and Axhausen 2006; Urry

2007). Scholars inspired by this approach have analysed business travel and other

forms of work-related mobility and communication within a framework of corpo-

rate ecologies or portfolios of mobility (Millar and Salt 2008; Faulconbridge

et al. 2009).

However, in spite of these new mediated forms of communication, mobility

research has remained attentive to the vital role of physical co-presence and face-

to-face encounters. For example, Urry (2003) elaborates on the networked charac-

ter of contemporary sociality and on the intrinsic qualities of face-to-face interactionthat necessitate personal meetings and, as a consequence, travel. These insights are

echoed in several studies looking at why businesspeople travel and in what ways

international companies depend on geographically dispersed face-to-face interaction

within and outside the organization (e.g. Jones 2007; Aguilra 2008; Wickham and

Vecchi 2008).

On the level of individual experience, mobility research asserts the non-trivial

nature of travel. Travel is not just a means to reach a destination, but an important

activity in itself (Urry 2007). Travel may be more or less comfortable and conve-

nient for the traveller depending on the means of transport, travel schedule, accom-

modation and other practical circumstances. Travel also involves spending time onthe road, and the experience of travel may differ greatly depending on the opportu-

nities to pursue meaningful activities while travelling (Lyons and Urry 2005). Such

factors are particularly important for frequent business travellers, who may spend

considerable time in air cabins, airport lounges, railway carriages and hotel rooms.

Importantly, their travel experiences involve not only stress and strain, but also

stimulation and relaxation (Brown and OHara 2003; Holley, Jain, and Lyons 2008;

Gustafson 2012b).

Moreover, mobility researchers have taken a lively interest in the relationship

between spatial and social mobility, and thus, how mobility is interrelated with

power, resources and social inequality (Kaufmann, Bergman, and Joye 2004; Jensen

2011). When theorizing this relationship, scholars have used the concept of mobil-

ity capital (e.g. Scott 2006; Faulconbridge et al. 2009) or similar concepts such as

mobility competence (Kesselring and Vogl 2010) or network capital (Larsen,

Urry, and Axhausen 2006; Urry 2007). Importantly, there are two sides to mobility

capital. First, the concepts point out that travel requires resources. Mobile persons

must have certain physical abilities, access to transport and communication infra-

structures, knowledge of how to use these infrastructures and the economic means

to do so; they must also have a legal status (passport, visas) that allows mobility

(Larsen, Urry, and Axhausen 2006; Urry 2007). They must be able to plan and

administrate their travel as well as to coordinate and negotiate their mobility with

family and friends (Bergstrm 2010; Bergstrm Casinowsky 2013). Yet anotheraspect is organizational or institutional resources. For example, business travellers

often travel within an organizational setting made up of corporate travel regulations

66 P. Gustafson


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and routines, support from travel agency personnel, integrated online booking tools,

and so forth (Gustafson 2012a).

Second, the concept of mobility capital highlights the fact that mobile persons

acquire new resources, abilities and opportunities owing to their mobility (Findlay

et al. 2006; Scott 2006; Brooks and Waters 2010). This aspect is of particular

importance in relation to working life and work-related mobilities. The experiences,

skills and orientations gained from mobility may be highly valued by employers

and thus promote the travellers professional career (Oddou, Mendenhall, and

Ritchie 2000; Scott 2006). Travel may also give access to broader social networks

(Bergstrm 2010; Gustafson 2009), and certain forms of business travel may, in

addition, be associated with social status (Thurlow and Jaworski 2006) and promote

an attractive cosmopolitan identity and lifestyle (Lassen 2010). There is, however,

little research on travellers thoughts about these different aspects of mobility

capital.

A nal conceptual theme, which will be further elaborated below in the analysisand conclusion, is the normalization of travel. In a recent study, Kesselring and

Vogl (2010) argue that business travel is currently undergoing a process of normali-

zation and rationalization, which tends to eliminate the stimulating and rewarding

aspects of travel. Previously, business travel was often regarded as a privilege and

an indication that the traveller was an important and trusted employee. Today, as

more and more employees are expected to travel, it has rather become a banal, rou-

tine activity, and employers demands for mobility are often perceived more as a

burden than a reward. Moreover, business travel is increasingly subject to corporate

cost control and regulations (Gustafson 2012a), which further undermine the feeling

of privilege and distinction. For Kesselring and Vogl (2010), normalization thereforesignies more stress, less stimulation and intensied exploitation of mobile workers.

However, this study suggests that the normalization of travel is a more multifaceted

process, which takes place on several levels and may have both positive and

negative consequences for travellers.

Data and Method

The study draws on interviews with business travellers and corporate travel manag-

ers in 12 Swedish work organizations. Organizations were selected from among

those whose travel managers were members of the Swedish Business Travel Associ-

ation. The selection of organizations aimed at variation, as employees in different

types of organizations may travel for different reasons and under different circum-

stances and therefore experience their travelling differently. The sample thus

included both public authorities and private companies in different sectors (includ-

ing services, trade and manufacturing), and the organizations also differed in terms

of size, travel volumes and travel patterns.

Semi-structured interviews were used to ensure that a number of important issues

were covered in all interviews, but also to provide opportunities for respondents to

bring up issues the interviewer had not considered (Flick 2002). Interviews thus

took the form of conversations in which the interviewer asked open-ended questions

and follow-up questions within relatively broad pre-dened areas, as outlined below.Initially, these areas and questions were inspired by previous research and theory.

But the interviewer was also attentive to new, unexpected issues that might emerge

during the interviews and prepared to follow-up on such issues if they seemed rele-



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vant to the study aim. As a consequence, the interview contents evolved to some

extent over time, as new interesting questions were added and less fruitful questions

were abandoned, although the general areas remained the same (Layder 1998).

First, the travel manager of each organization was interviewed. They were asked

questions about their role as travel managers, about the organizations travel

activity, about travel policy and travel regulations and about attitudes towards travel

in the organization. Second, travel managers were asked to recruit two or a few

frequent business travellers in their organizations for separate interviews. Some had

difculties recruiting others, but in the end, interviews were conducted with 22 trav-

ellers from 11 of the 12 organizations. The selection of travellers thus largely

depended on the travel managers. Still, efforts were made to achieve variation in

the sample, mainly with regard to sex, family situation and reasons for travelling,

as previous research has suggested that these factors may be associated with differ-

ent experiences of frequent travel. The sample of travellers included 10 women and

12 men, mostly managers and professionals, ranging in age from 28 to 58 years.They travelled from 25 up to around 180 days a year, and most of them had been

travelling intensely for several years. The travellers were asked about how and why

they travelled, about their experiences, strategies and opinions with regard to busi-

ness travel, and about the consequences of travel for their professional and personal

life. Interviews generally lasted between one and two hours.

The analyses presented here are primarily based on interviews with travellers.

Travel manager interviews are used as complements when relevant. Transcripts

were coded and analysed thematically. Initial coding mainly used the pre-dened

themes from the interviews; subsequent coding and analysis developed themes and

sub-themes in an interplay between the empirical data and existing research and the-ory (Layder 1998; Strauss and Corbin 1998). The most important analytical themes

that emerged from this process, with regard to travellers experiences of frequent

travel, are presented in the following sections. Quotations have been translated from

Swedish and anonymized with regard to both individual identities and

organizations.

The study was designed to promote an in-depth understanding of frequent busi-

ness travellers experiences of travel and to capture qualitative variation in such

experiences. The analysis also revealed a number of factors that may help to

explain this variation, and these will be briey summarized in the conclusion of the

paper. However, the purpose was not to investigate in detail how different types or

categories of travellers differed in their experiences of travel. Such an analysis

would have required a larger sample and a more quantitative research design.

The Practice of Travel

Business travel is not an end in itself, but a means to perform work at the

destination. Yet for frequent travellers, travel as an activity or practice also becomes

an important part of their work. The interviews clearly show that travel requires

knowledge and ability and may be associated with both positive and negative

experiences.

On the positive side, some of the interviewees described how they appreciatedspecic aspects of the travel experience, such as the comfort of business-class tra-

vel, the international atmosphere of big airports, or the opportunity to relax and

68 P. Gustafson


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enjoy a long-distance ight when there was no need to work during the journey.

However, the predominant attitudes towards the practice of travel were negative.

To begin with, the journey itself may be stressful in a number of ways

(Ivancevich, Konopaske, and DeFrank 2003). Interviewees were concerned about

missing the ight, about delays and missed connections, about overbookings and

lost luggage, about booked taxis that never turned up, and other practical problems

on the road. They were frustrated with security controls, inefcient check-in

routines, waiting times at airports and poor information about trafc disruptions.

They complained about uncomfortable aircraft seats, loud-voiced mobile phone

users and over-charging taxi drivers.

Health and safety concerns were another recurrent theme in the interviews. Trav-

ellers felt tired because travelling meant early mornings, late evenings, intense

working days, sleeping difculties, and sometimes jet lag. Some interviewees were

concerned about colds and coughs, infections, skin problems or circulatory distur-

bances, which they suspected were related to frequent air travel. They reported thattravel often meant fewer opportunities for physical exercise, poor eating habits and

in some cases over-consumption of alcohol. These factors, one female traveller

argued, added to other stressful conditions associated with business travel:

Traveller: You eat less healthy food, you get less physical exercise. You sleep

in beds that are not your own, which means that sometimes theyre ne,

sometimes you have a pain in your back for the next three weeks. And then

theres more stress. I think its bad for your health to travel a lot.

Interviewer: OK. More stress, in what way?

Traveller: You need to be on time, I mean, there are a lot of times to keep

when you travel. [...] Plus theres a lot of work that doesnt get done when

you travel. So travel often brings about more stress.

With regard to personal safety, at least those interviewees who often travelled

abroad were aware of safety issues in relation to travel. Some admitted to being

uneasy about ying; a few had been involved in minor incidents. Several intervie-

wees also described precautionary measures, such as avoiding certain airlines, tak-

ing a taxi (preferably booked in advance) rather than walking, checking emergency

exits at the hotel, not carrying valuables, and avoiding visible logotypes that

identied their employer.

Travelling for business often means travelling alone. The interviewees had mixed

feelings about this. Some complained about loneliness and boredom when travelling

without company, spending lonely nights at the hotel and having dinner alone. In

addition, at least in certain destinations, female travellers could feel exposed or

insecure if they left the hotel or went to a restaurant alone. Other interviewees atti-

tudes were more positive. Travelling alone may give a sense of freedom and also

enable those who wish to work during the journey to do so. Moreover, being alone

at the hotel room, watching TV and relaxing may give time for restoration or

respite from everyday work and family obligations (cf. Westman, Etzion, andChen 2009).

Importantly, individual experiences of travel differed considerably, and not all the

stressors enumerated above were experienced by all travellers. On the contrary,



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travellers often developed strategies for reducing travel-related stress and inconve-

niences on the road. The interviews provide numerous examples of respondents

ability to choose the right airline, the right connection and the right seat, spend as

little time as possible at the airport, travel with as little luggage as possible, and so

forth. Such travel competence appears as an important form of mobility capital

a kind of resource, derived from experience and practice that enables or facilitates

mobility. It might even be a source of pride and contribute to the professional

identity of frequent business travellers:

When youve been travelling as long as I have, I mean Ive been doing this

more or less for 23 years, then you develop a routine. You know what airlines

to use, you know the airports, you nd your way around, you dont need to

be there a long time in advance, and you kind of know how to slip through

the security control. [...] Arlanda airport is a classic example. I hardly every

from terminal 5 nowadays. I avoid it, because the check-in queues are terrible.[...] If you travel with Fly Nordic instead, from terminal 2, youre through in

three minutes. Perfect!

The practice of business travel often goes unnoticed, both in research and in mana-

gerial practice, as both researchers and managers tend to be more interested in the

work people do than in where they do it and how they get there (Faulconbridge

et al. 2009; Welch and Worm 2006). For frequent business travellers, however,

travel is not an invisible, effortless getting there, but an important practice in its

own right. It is a part of their work that is experienced corporeally, emotionally and

intellectually and that may contribute to both stress and stimulation. In certainrespects, travel may become less stressful as seasoned travellers develop travel

competence, but when travel becomes a routine it may also lose some of the

meanings that initially made it stimulating. This paradox will be discussed at more

length in the section on normalization.

Travel and Work

Travel may also have signicant consequences for the work situation, workload and

working conditions of frequent travellers. On the positive side, the interviewees

generally felt that travelling enabled them to do a good job to have high-quality

meetings, to gain inuence in negotiations, to build trust and develop professional

networks and therefore made their work more stimulating. Moreover, they appre-

ciated the opportunities travel gave them to work in different places and countries

and to meet with people from different cultures. Such experiences were perceived

as enriching, both personally and professionally:

Of course its a good thing to see other cities and places and countries, to

meet with and work with different cultures. Thats exciting and enriching for

me as a person. The negative side is that you have to get there, the travelling

itself. But I really appreciate having the opportunity to visit these places, meet

these people and work across cultures. The work Im doing, its really apositive thing for me.

70 P. Gustafson


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Interviewees working in big organizations also said that travelling and working with

colleagues from other places and countries made them feel part of the organization

as a whole. It helped them to see their work in a broader perspective and promoted

a kind of corporate identity.

But travel may also make work more stressful (Ivancevich, Konopaske, and

DeFrank 2003). Interviewees often associated travel with intense work and long

working hours. They described having all-day meetings and then spending their

evenings travelling, working at the hotel, or having a business dinner with clients

or colleagues. Travel time was frequently used as working time, as travellers needed

to prepare meetings as well as make notes and do various kinds of follow-up work

after meetings. In addition, most interviewees tried to answer email (and sometimes

voice mail) while travelling to avoid having an excessive workload when they

returned from the journey.

For many frequent travellers, hotel rooms, airport lounges, air cabins and railway

carriages thus become workplaces that supplement their ordinary ofces (Holley,Jain, and Lyons 2008). These workplaces sometimes offer rather poor working con-

ditions. The interviewees repeatedly voiced their complaints about, for example,

useless waiting times at airports, cramped seats, disturbance from other passengers

and unreliable Internet connections. The presence of other passengers in trains and

planes also limits opportunities to work with sensitive information, as several

respondents pointed out.

However, some travellers appreciated the working conditions during their jour-

neys and felt that travel provided valuable working time. Several interviewees

described how they found time for undisturbed reading, thinking or computer work

during long-distance journeys. One traveller described himself as a fullydigitalized mobile worker, carrying all his work with him in his laptop rather than

collecting papers on his ofce desk; he was therefore able to work very efciently

while travelling:

Some people feel that travel consumes a lot of their time. For me its quite

the opposite. I get a lot of work done when Im on a business trip. That may

sound like a paradox, but thats how it is. I think Im least efcient when I sit

here at the ofce between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., because then there are so many

interruptions. There are phone calls about all kinds of trivial things and a

steady ow of people who come to talk about this or that. Very nice from a

social point of view, but not very efcient. But when I travel, I can really

focus and concentrate.

An interesting observation was that employers often supplied their travellers with

the equipment they needed to work on the road, such as laptops with wireless Inter-

net connections, mobile phones and BlackBerries, but made no explicit demands

about work during travel time (cf. Gustafson 2012b). Instead, employers largely left

it to the travellers themselves to decide whether or not they needed to work while

travelling. One reason for this is probably that formal regulation of work during tra-

vel time would raise awkward questions about managerial control and about the

employers responsibility with regard to work environment and working conditionson the road (Allvin and Aronsson 2003). Travellers, too, tended to discuss the use

of travel time in terms of their own choice and their own responsibility and

expressed no desire for more regulation in this regard. The interviews suggest that



12/23

the lack of regulation gave travellers a sense of freedom and independence that

made stressful travel and heavy workloads somewhat easier to bear. Business travel-

lers ability to organize their work in time and space and to make their own deci-

sions about how to use their travel time emerges as yet another aspect of mobility

capital.

Travel, Family and Private Life

The most stressful consequences of frequent business travel are often related to

balancing work and private life, and particularly to travellers family relations

(Espino et al. 2002; Black and Jamieson 2007). In this study, 16 of the 22 travellers

were married or cohabiting, and 12 had children living at home. Dual-earner

couples were the rule, and in some cases, respondents partners also travelled in

their work.

Interviewees with families often felt that travel affected their family life, as itinvolved early mornings, late evenings and nights spent away from home. This

required planning, preparation and coordination at home, and sometimes negotia-

tions with the partner. One frequent traveller, whose wife also travelled as part of

her work, described their situation:

We coordinate our agendas six months ahead to decide who will bring the kid

to and from the daycare centre. Its an enormous puzzle.

Both male and female travellers generally described how they and their partners

tried to divide household-related tasks more or less equally, although some of thewomen felt they still had the main responsibility (cf. Bergstrm Casinowsky 2013).

Thus, travellers who spent a great deal of time away from home might feel that

they did not do their part of the household work and that they had to make up for

this upon return. Moreover, frequent travel was sometimes associated with feelings

of separation and loneliness, both among travellers and their families. Taken

together, these factors made travel more stressful and might even be detrimental to

family relations.

For these reasons, travellers often tried to adapt their travelling in order to protect

their family life and manage their family responsibilities. Some interviewees had

not started travelling until their children had grown up. Others tried, for family rea-

sons, to restrict their travel activity or arrange their travel in ways that reduced

stress for the family. Strategies included planning journeys a long time ahead and

avoiding ad hoc trips, combining several meetings during one journey in order to

reduce the number of trips, using telephone or web meetings as a substitute for cer-

tain types of meetings that would require travel, adapting travel schedules to morn-

ing or evening family routines, avoiding very distant destinations, and spending as

few nights as possible away from home. For travellers with partners and children,

the ability to manage the travelfamily interface by planning, negotiating and

modifying their travel behaviour was clearly an important form of mobility capital.

At times, however, more radical and painful adaptations might be necessary, such

as changing work tasks, declining promotion, or even taking on a new job. Oneinterviewee had left her previous work as a consultant to reduce the level of

stressful travel:

72 P. Gustafson


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I wanted to know how much travel [the new job] involved and what destina-

tions. My children were even younger three years ago, and I didnt want to be

away to such an extent that my private, family life would suffer. So I felt that

the Nordic countries, OK, ne. Copenhagen and Oslo, no problem. Japan,

China, no thanks. Ive done that. Fun, interesting, hard work, but not in

combination with small children. [...] And today I schedule my own travel. I

own my agenda, unlike when I worked as a management consultant and had no

control at all.

Travellers often felt that their travelling encroached on both working time and

leisure time. This made them highly aware of how they spent their time and incited

them to use time efciently. Interviewees often described working hard and concen-

trating on their work during working time, while protecting their non-working time

against work-related intrusions in order to spend quality time with their families.

The perceived loss of useful time due to travel thus produced an intensication ofboth working time and family time.

Frequent travel also restricts the time available for social and leisure activities.

Travellers with a family tended to prioritize their families when they returned from

a business trip and had little time left for more distant relatives and friends. In addi-

tion, travelling and spending evenings and nights away from home made it difcult

for many interviewees to participate in collective activities, such as social events

with friends or organized leisure activities:

Its difcult to have activities at regular times. Like playing badminton every

Thursday afternoon, that doesnt work. [...] Being a trainer for a football team,that doesnt work. So you avoid getting involved in such activities. Thats a

choice you make, not to participate in things on a regular basis.

Yet the implications of travel for the interviewees private and family lives were not

entirely negative. Travel may give opportunities to see friends who live at the desti-

nation, and interviewees who regularly travelled to the same place might gradually

develop personal friendships with colleagues working there. Also, depending on

destinations and timing, travellers could occasionally combine business trips with

leisure activities or a holiday, alone or with their families.

Travel and Careers

In an increasingly mobile working life, travel and other forms of mobility may be

important for career opportunities and career advancement (Oddou, Mendenhall,

and Ritchie 2000). This brings up theoretical questions about the relationship

between spatial and social mobility, and about the potentially mediating role of cer-

tain forms of mobility capital (Kaufmann, Bergman, and Joye 2004; Larsen, Urry,

and Axhausen 2006). On a general level, employees who want to have a career

need to do a good job, and in order to do a good job they sometimes need to travel.

In addition, the interviews revealed a number of more specic mechanisms through

which travel may promote travellers professional careers.To begin with, willingness to travel may signify work commitment. It shows

current and potential employers that employees are able and willing to work hard,

to spend time away from home and family, and that they have ambition:



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By travelling, I send out a signal that Im mobile and that Im exible. I

denitely believe thats an advantage in terms of career opportunities.

Several interviewees also pointed out that travel made them more visible, within

their own organizations as well as in relation to external partners, and that their

travelling allowed them to develop and maintain extensive professional networks.

Both these aspects were considered important in opening up new career opportuni-

ties. As one respondent put it, when asked whether her international travel might be

benecial to her career:

Traveller: Yes, because I get much greater exposure. In that respect its an

advantage.

Interviewer: What do you mean by exposure?

Traveller: Exposure to more people, I build up a much bigger network. More

people know me, I know more people. If you only work in Sweden your

network is more limited.

Moreover, travel allows travellers to learn, gain experience and develop new

abilities. As they meet and work with people from other places, they acquire new

professional skills and valuable practical work-related experience, and this may in

turn promote their careers. International travel also provides knowledge of other

cultures and experience of working in cross-cultural settings. This involves the

development of what Oddou, Mendenhall, and Ritchie (2000) describe as globalmindsets an ability to understand different viewpoints, to see things from differ-

ent perspectives and to manage uncertainty. Such qualities are important to career

advancement, especially in international organizations:

Being able to travel, thats good for your career. Not the travel itself [...] but

what youre doing in these other places is good for your career. That you get

used to working in other cultures, in other countries, in different languages, in

other parts of the company all those things. Not staying in the small comfort

zone around your desk, but making your way in the world, so to speak.

Many employers in the study regarded travel and mobility as positive factors.

Mobile employees, one respondent said, were more useful than those who were not

willing to travel. In higher positions, travel aimed at developing and maintaining

relations within and beyond the organization was often necessary for performing

the job. Being willing to travel thus gave access to a wider range of interesting job

opportunities. Several large corporations in the study explicitly encouraged people

to move around in the organization and gain experience from different units.

Employees who wished to reach senior management positions were sometimes also

expected, or even required, to undertake expatriate assignments (cf. Millar and Salt

2008). In sum, both the ability and willingness to travel and the personal qualities

and orientations that travellers are presumed to develop by travelling may contributeto professional advancement. Travellers as well as employers in the study were

clearly aware of the importance of these two interrelated aspects of mobility capital.

74 P. Gustafson


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However, several interviewees pointed out that the relationship between travel

and careers looks different in different organizations and for different employees.

Certainly not all travellers think of their own travel as a career strategy and not all

kinds of travel are career-promoting. The travel activity of high-level managers also

varied owing to differences in organizational design and culture. In some organiza-

tions, managers were expected to travel a great deal in order to stay in contact with

geographically dispersed units; in other organizations, important meetings were nor-

mally held at corporate headquarters, the assumption being that senior managers

would be there rather than travelling around. In the latter case, career advancement

might result in less travel.

Travel, Status and Identity

Business travel may also have implications for the travellers identity. Two different

aspects appeared in the interviews. One concerned professional identity and status;the other concerned the travellers possible identication as a mobile, cosmopolitan

individual.

In the marketing of the business travel industry, business travel is often associated

with a certain amount of glamour and prestige, as well as with both professional

and social status (Thurlow and Jaworski 2006). Such perceptions can also be found

among the general public. Travellers in the study were aware of these connotations,

but often downplayed questions about travel and status during the interviews. For

frequent business travellers, they argued, travelling was much more about hard

work and lacking time for family life than about glamour. Yet there were individual

interviewees who clearly enjoyed their travelling because they felt it reinforced theirprofessional status. As one interviewee put it, you feel a bit more important [...]

when you have a job that involves travel.

Travel managers in the study also had many stories to tell about travellers for

whom business-class travel, large hotel rooms and prestigious bonus cards were

important, and who therefore at times transgressed the organizations travel policy.

Such travellers might be top-level managers who felt they deserved more upscale

travel and accommodations than others, as well as rank-and-le employees who did

not want to y in economy class, use low-cost airlines or make business trips by

train. Such attitudes, which travel managers sometimes described as the emotional

side of travel (cf. Holma 2009, 104), obviously involved employees professional

identity and perceived status as business travellers.

For several interviewees, business travel was also associated with a more general

identity as a mobile person. This was reected in accounts about travel compe-

tence, as discussed above, but also in a certain restlessness and in accounts about

the stimulation that came from seeing new places, meeting new people and having

new experiences. Travel might be stressful, but for several interviewees staying at

the ofce was not really an option:

Travel is a positive part of my life. I mean, Ive never had a job where I

havent been travelling, and I cant really imagine having that kind of job,

where I dont travel at all. If I did, I think my world would shrink dramati-cally, and I dont think Id be very happy about it.



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For those who often travel abroad, travel may be part of their identity as an interna-

tional or cosmopolitan person (Lassen 2010). International travellers often described

how they enjoyed meeting and working with people from other countries, discover-

ing cultural differences and getting rst-hand knowledge of other parts of the world.

Such knowledge, together with the ability to communicate and cooperate with col-

leagues or business partners across cultures, may promote travellers international

identity and, as discussed above, it represents an important form of mobility capital.

Yet the relationship between travel and international identication differed. For

some interviewees, travelling and working in an international environment was a

priority from the start. They had applied for their current jobs at least partly because

the positions involved international travel. Several of these respondents had previ-

ously studied foreign languages, studied abroad or worked abroad, and international

mobility often appeared as part of their career strategies. Some were also interested

in international politics, international relations and so forth, and many had friends

and acquaintances living abroad. In these cases, travel was a deliberate choice:

I like travelling. I like being international, I like meeting people from other

countries. I have a genuine interest in other countries, which I had even before

I started working with [the current employer]. And thats certainly the reason

why I was attracted by this position. [...] I wouldnt nd it very interesting to

work for, lets say, a Swedish company with no international contacts.

But for many travellers, travel was better characterized as an unintended side-effect

of their professional careers. With the internationalization of business activities and

politics, international travel today often comes with the job even for employeeswho have not actively sought it. Travellers in this category, too, sometimes came to

appreciate the international contacts and experiences that they acquired through tra-

vel, and developed more or less international identities. Other travellers took little

or no interest in the international context of their work and felt they were simply

doing their job, regardless of its geographical location. For these travellers, travel

was just transport.

The Normalization of Travel

Reading the previous sections may give the impression that business travel has pro-

found consequences for the professional and personal lives of frequent travellers

and to a certain extent this is true. However, the nal comment above, about travel

being just a matter of transport, echoes another recurrent theme in the interviews.

This theme implies that travel is increasingly regarded as a normal, commonplace

activity and that this may potentially make travel both less stimulating and less

stressful. Following Kesselring and Vogl (2010), this tendency can be conceptual-

ized as a normalization of travel. The interviews suggest that normalization can be

analytically observed on three levels.

First, normalization occurs on a societal level. In an increasingly mobile society,

where leisure travel even to distant, exotic places is becoming more and more

common, travel at work may appear less exciting and less attractive. As one travelmanager put it:

76 P. Gustafson


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Previously [...] that part of the job, travelling, was much more exciting. I think

that was because people didnt travel as much for leisure as they do now. Lei-

sure travel has increased a lot since travel became so cheap. Almost every-

body here travels abroad on holiday, takes a week off in the spring or

autumn, goes away skiing or playing golf, goes to Thailand or whatever,

because its so cheap. They didnt do thatve or ten years ago. In those days,

it was because of your work that you got the opportunity to travel...

As discussed in the introduction, travel in working life has been increasing too, due

to economic and political internationalization as well as organizational trends and

developments (Aguilra 2008). Many employees today travel as part of their job,

and this reinforces the normalization of travel on the societal level.

Second, normalization occurs on an organizational level. Travel becomes a more

normal activity in organizations where a large proportion of employees travel than

it does in other organizations. Such variation may also appear between units ordepartments within the same organization. The interviews indicate that differences

in travel activity within and between organizations affect collective attitudes and

practices in relation to travel, both among managers and colleagues and among the

travellers themselves.

Third, normalization occurs on an individual level. Travel is more normal for

some individuals than for others, depending on their experience of travel. Individual

attitudes towards travel may therefore also change over time. Several interviewees

described how they gradually had come to view their travelling as an everyday

routine:

The time has passed when I thought business travel was fun. In the beginning

I really enjoyed it, but nowadays its just part of the job, so I dont think very

much about it really. [...] Of course, if theres something special at home for

example, and I need to travel, I may feel really bad about it, but otherwise...

no, it becomes something natural.

Naturally, normalization on the level of individual experiences is nothing new. Indi-

viduals have long been travelling extensively and developed practices and attitudes

accordingly (Leed 1991). But the normalization of travel on the organizational

level, and even more so on the societal level, emerges as a novel phenomenon,

reecting the overall increase in business travel, leisure travel and other forms of

mobility over the past few decades (Urry 2007; Faulconbridge et al. 2009).

The normalization of travel has multiple, and seemingly paradoxical, conse-

quences. For one thing, travel may become less stressful as travellers gain experi-

ence and learn how to manage travel-related practicalities. The accounts about

travel competence are a good example. However, as indicated by the quotations

above, travel may also become less stimulating and employees less willing to

travel as the attraction and excitement of travel fade away.

Yet another possible consequence of normalization is that frequent business

travellers are met with more understanding and sympathy (or at least not with envy)

in their organizations. The interviews indicate that this was particularly the case inorganizations or departments where large proportions of employees were required to

travel. Such organization-level normalization of travel may even enable travellers to

demand better working conditions in relation to their journeys. One interviewee,



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who often returned home very tired after long-distance ights, felt that conditions

had improved:

Previously, travel was a privilege. It was regarded as a privilege, and therefore

you could not claim any rights. Now, my feeling is that most... that we travel

much more, in general, within the organization, and therefore I think [...] these

things are changing to some extent. I can make demands, like if my plane

arrives at 11 am., I wont go to work, but Ill stay home that day. Previously,

I didnt do that. I went straight to work.

At the same time, the conception of travel as an everyday, normal activity may also

make employers less willing to accept what they regard as ashy and unnecessarily

expensive travel habits. One expression of this is the development of corporate tra-

vel management, especially in large organizations with extensive business travel.

Travel management typically implies a standardization of business travel to controland reduce travel costs. This is achieved through common administrative routines,

travel policies with detailed travel standards (use of economy vs. business class,

hotel standards, etc.), centralized booking procedures, and controls to ensure policy

adherence (Gustafson 2012a). One travel manager quite explicitly made the

connection between normalization and travel standards:

Personally, I feel that travel nowadays, travel within Europe, thats just like

taking the commuter train, really. So Id say, remove all those extra services. I

dont get food served on the commuter train, do I?

One response to the normalization of travel, found among a few travellers in the

study, was to distinguish between normal travel and fun travel. Fun travel was

mainly associated with distant and unusual destinations and to some extent with

pleasurable travel conditions (business class and good hotels) and exciting meetings

or events at the destination, whereas normal travel was above all characterized by

routine and repetition. If possible, these interviewees attempted to minimize normal

travel but maintain fun travel.

However, a far more common pattern in the interviews was that travellers as well

as travel managers talked about travel in terms of rationality and efciency (cf.

Kesselring and Vogl 2010). In these accounts, employees travel as a matter of

course when that is the most efcient way to perform their work tasks. They avoid

unnecessary travel and excessive travel costs. When planning their travel, they

usually attempt to spend as few nights as possible away from home and family, and

as little working time as possible away from their regular workplace. These

accounts about rationality and efciency were often, explicitly or implicitly, made

in opposition to an understanding of travel as something extraordinary or particu-

larly attractive. They reinforced the conception of travel as just a matter of transport

and downplayed the stimulating and to some extent also the stressful aspects of

business travel.

Conclusion

This study has examined how frequent business travel is experienced by travellers

and what consequences travel has for their personal and professional lives. Early

78 P. Gustafson


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research in this area largely described business travel as a source of stress and strain

for travellers (Striker, Dimberg, and Liese 2000; Espino et al. 2002; Ivancevich,

Konopaske, and DeFrank 2003), whereas more recent studies, partly inspired by

mobility research, suggest that business travel may also have positive implications

(Welch and Worm 2006; Bergstrm 2010; Lassen 2010). This study adds to the

existing research on business travel and mobility in three important ways.

First, in-depth interviews with frequent travellers demonstrate that business travel

may have a wide range of meanings and implications for the travellers a multi-

tude that earlier studies have rarely acknowledged or explored in full. In the analy-

sis, travel emerged as a signicant practice in its own right, with potentially

important consequences for the travellers work and working conditions, family

relations and private life, professional development and perceived status and self-

identity. Consequences were positive as well as negative. Travel may be associated

with enriching experiences, career opportunities, enhanced social and professional

status and a cosmopolitan identity, but also with physical and mental strain,increased workloads and difculties in balancing work and private life.

Several points from the present analysis are of interest in relation to previous

research. The most serious problems, especially for travellers with children, con-

cerned the impact of travel on family life (cf. Espino et al. 2002; Black and Jamie-

son 2007). Interviewees developed a number of strategies, both at home and at

work, in order to reconcile frequent travel with family obligations. Their temporal

strategies could often be described as an intensication of time, as travellers tried

to minimize travel time, to work intensely and efciently during working time, and

to secure undisturbed quality time for family and friends. But the use and useful-

ness of travel time is a multi-faceted issue (Lyons and Urry 2005; Holley, Jain, andLyons 2008). Most interviewees spent at least some of their travel time working,

but none of them had any formal agreement with their employer about it, and nei-

ther travellers nor travel managers were interested in regulating use of travel time.

Also, while many travellers complained about poor working conditions on the road,

there were also mobile workers who managed to nd (or create) high-quality work-

ing time during their journeys. Moreover, international travel may be associated

with an identity as a mobile, cosmopolitan individual (Lassen 2010). An interesting

nding was that such identities were found to exist both among travellers who had

a strong international orientation from the start and among employees for whom

travel and international experience rather appeared as an unintended side-effect of

successful professional careers.

Overall, the individual experiences of, and attitudes towards, travel differed

considerably among the travellers, and the analysis revealed a range of factors

underlying this variation. A number of travel-related factors were of crucial impor-

tance travel schedules (frequency, distance and duration, in particular nights spent

away from home), destinations (domestic vs. international), travel comfort and

working conditions on the road, travel planning (long-term planning vs. ad hoc

journeys) and the motives for travelling (e.g. routine meetings vs. meetings and

events that provided variation and stimulation). The analysis also highlighted

the role of work-related factors (the travellers professional role and position, overall

workload, whether or not work tasks could be performed on the road), organiza-tional factors (policy regulation and organization of travel, attitudes towards

travel among managers and colleagues), social factors (work-life issues, family

obligations, support from ones spouse or other relatives) and personal factors



20/23

(travel competence and experience, international vs. more local orientations).

These different factors may affect the extent to which travel is perceived as stimu-

lating and/or stressful by individual travellers. Future research may use the present

ndings for investigating more systematically how and why different types or

categories of business travellers differ in their attitudes towards travel.

A second contribution of the paper concerns the different forms of mobility capi-

tal involved in business travel, particularly how travel may be benecial to travel-

lers professional careers. The concept of mobility capital has two sides,

representing both resources and abilities that enable or facilitate mobility (Larsen,

Urry, and Axhausen 2006; Faulconbridge et al. 2009) and resources and abilities

acquired by travellers through their mobility (Scott 2006; Brooks and Waters 2010).

On the one hand, then, frequent travellers need travel competence to manage

the practicalities involved in travelling, they need to be able to organize their own

work in time and space, and they need planning and negotiation skills in order to

combine travel with family obligations and private life. A certain amount of socialsupport at home and organizational support at work is also useful. On the other

hand, travel helps travellers develop abilities and gain access to resources. The rela-

tionship between travel and careers is of particular interest in this respect. It is well

known that high-level managers and professionals are strongly over-represented

among frequent business travellers (e.g. Doyle and Nathan 2001), but previous

research has not examined this relationship in detail.

The present study identied a number of mechanisms through which business

travel may promote the travellers professional career: (1) employers may perceive

willingness to travel as evidence of work commitment and a high degree of

availability for work; (2) travellers become more visible both within and outsidetheir own organizations; (3) travel may be used for developing and maintaining pro-

fessional networks; (4) travel gives opportunities to acquire valuable professional

knowledge; (5) international mobility helps to develop cross-cultural skills; (6)

workers who are able and willing to travel have access to a wider range of job

opportunities; and (7) more generally, travel may help travellers do a good job,

which in turn promotes their careers. These mechanisms demonstrate how different

kinds of mobility capital, possessed and developed by frequent business travellers,

may serve as causal links between spatial and social mobility (cf. Kaufmann, Berg-

man, and Joye 2004; Larsen, Urry, and Axhausen 2006). The different mechanisms,

and their combined effects on career opportunities and professional careers, merit

further study.

One reason for investigating such effects is the gender dimension of business travel.

In this study, frequent male and female travellers had largely similar attitudes towards

their business travel, although some of the interviews indicated that travel may be

more stressful for women than for men (see also Bergstrm Casinowsky 2013). How-

ever, travel statistics show that far more men than women travel at work and that

women to a greater extent than men reduce their travel activity when they have young

children. These statistical patterns suggest that women are, on the whole, less able and

willing to take on jobs that require travel, and/or that employers due to gender

stereotyping consider them to be less suitable for such jobs (Gustafson 2006). This

suggests, in turn, that women miss out on important career opportunities.A nal contribution of the study concerns the normalization of travel. As more

and more people travel, for business as well as leisure, this also affects common

understandings, attitudes and practices in relation to travel. Kesselring and Vogl

80 P. Gustafson


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(2010) have previously argued that normalization is eliminating many of the mate-

rial and symbolic benets traditionally associated with business travel. This study

broadens the perspective on normalization in two important ways.

First, it suggests that normalization involves processes on the societal level, on

the organizational level and on the individual level. Although globalization and

low-cost travel have produced a general, societal-level, normalization of travel, the

degree to which travel is regarded, experienced and managed as a normal activity

still differs across organizations as well as individuals. A full understanding of the

normalization of travel and its implications therefore requires that all three levels be

taken into consideration.

Second, the normalization of travel may have both positive and negative implica-

tions for business travellers. As Kesselring and Vogl (2010) suggest, processes of

normalization and rationalization clearly have the potential to make travel less

attractive. When long-distance travel becomes more common, the symbolic value of

such travel is likely to be deated and the contribution of extensive business travelto valued social identities and lifestyles less important. Moreover, corporate travel

management with a focus on standardization, regulation and cost control does not

only contribute to this symbolic deation, but may also result in lower levels of

material comfort for business travellers.

However, normalization may also have benecial consequences. On the individ-

ual level, experienced business travellers gradually acquire travel competence and

develop strategies that reduce travel-related stress. On the organizational level, high

travel activity may cause managers and colleagues to be more supportive of fre-

quent travellers as they better understand the strain associated with intense travel.

Such insights may also inuence travel management practices (Gustafson 2012b).More generally, if travel is no longer regarded as a privilege and associated with

glamour and prestige, there is little reason to expect additional sacrices from trav-

ellers in terms of workloads, working hours and poor work environment. In certain

cases at least, normalization may therefore lead to improved working conditions for

frequent business travellers.

An additional aspect to consider in relation to the normalization of travel is that

normalization and its consequences are likely to differ between social groups or cat-

egories. Familiar sociological categorizations such as gender, age and social class

merit further attention in this regard. Again, the gender dimension of business travel

is an interesting example. On the one hand, the male predominance in business tra-

vel probably reects social norms and practices that construct work-related travel as

a more normal activity for men than for women (Gustafson 2006). On the other

hand, one may speculate that a general societal-level normalization of travel may

gradually undermine gender stereotypes that depict women as less suitable for

mobile work.

The normalization of travel reects important developments of mobility in

society, in organizations, and among individuals (Larsen, Urry, and Axhausen 2006;

Urry 2007; Faulconbridge et al. 2009). This study shows that processes of normali-

zation have the potential to moderate and recongure the implications of travel in

multiple and sometimes paradoxical ways. What consequences this will have, for

business travel as well as other kinds of travel and mobility, is a highly relevantquestion for future mobility research.



22/23

Acknowledgements

The research was nanced by the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social

Research (FAS dnr 2007-0205). The author is grateful to Ann Bergman, Gunilla

Bergstrm Casinowsky and Mats Franzn for very useful comments on earlierdrafts of the text and to the Swedish Business Travel Association for valuable help

with recruiting respondents for the study.

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