trajanc

I find nothing sucks the joy out of travel quicker than being around business travelers. They are a at once a reminder of everything I am trying to escape from when I travel and a too frequent source of painful distraction.
I hate the shop talk. I don’t need to hear the two of you discuss your marketing goals for your stupid f’ing wine cooler.
I hate the safe soulless banter that passes for your personal conversations. You don’t want to be there having the conversation. I don’t want to be next to you having to listen to it.
I hate the office you create with your lap top and whatever other crap you drag around and I hate how you go into a full clench if anyone intrudes by say reclining a seat or trying to walk past you or just breathing.

LondonElite

Maybe a moderator can merge this into one of the ‘I need to vent’ or ‘pointless things to moan about’ threads. At least you didn’t lump everyone together!

abmj-jr

For your edification, the accepted term among those of us in the same camp is "SIBT" (Self Important Business Traveler.)

You are not alone.

Silver Fox

I'd have given you a 1000 likes if I could. One I heard the other week was "I turned down being the CEO as I enjoy the day to day blah blah blah".

evergrn

This is actually a good topic.
I only wish the OP phrased things a bit differently so that the topic could be discussed more constructively and hence be given more credibility.

Biz travelers are good and bad.
GOOD (as you'll see, they're only good at hotels):
- They often check in later and check out earlier, facilitating early check-in / late check-out for others.
- Quick in/out with breakfast, allowing for faster table turnover..
- Less likely to use pools.
- Make for quieter neighbors than leisure families/couples, when staying in hotel rooms.

BAD:
- Worst manners at airport lounges (talk loud, prop feet up on tables).
- More carry-on volume.
- Myopic, misguided sense of entitlement wrt their program status and how they're better than leisure travelers, which is SO PERVASIVE here on FT. (I earned my Hilton Diamond status. You got yours through match/cc.)

Silver Fox

Personally I think the OP was spot on and put it in a way that was close to the heart and one which chimes with me, and probably a lot of others. Genuine posts that are from the heart, that I like. It's like the sort of chat you would have in a bar with a mate when you have just had enough of something.

LondonElite

evergrn

Most business travelers are fine. But business travelers are more likely to be this way (referring to what I said above) than leisure travelers.

Low Roller

I'm not a business traveler, but I'd prefer to deal with that sort of behavior instead of the leisure traveler who:
- holds up the security line because they have no idea what has to be removed or put in bins
- holds up boarding while they try to jam their clearly-oversized bag into the overhead bin
- bring along a hoard of children who run around screaming in the airport, on the plane and in the hotel hallways

Badenoch

What should really suck the joy out of the OP's travel is knowing that the business traveller he resents so much:

Has elite status on the airline and gets perks and upgrades he can only dream of and are permanently beyond his grasp.

Is probably sitting in the front in a comfortable seat that was paid for by someone else while he paid out of his own pocket to be crammed into tiny seat in the back.

Will be seated first, will always find sufficient room in the overhead and might even enjoy the burning stares of people seated in Zone 4 who are waiting in a long line while he goes to the front.

And if your hate becomes so overwhelming my advice to the OP is to take the bus. Fewer business people on buses and a social class probably more suitable for his position in life.

rbwpi

As a frequent leisure traveler I appreciate the fact that business travelers subsidize the costs of my travel.

deniah

To be honest I rarely encounter or overhear this sort of stuff

NYTA

I'm a frequent business and leisure traveler and the only difference is that when I travel for business I'm alone and when I travel for leisure I'm with my wife and/or kids, all of whom are worse travelers than I am so we probably end up disturbing other people like the OP a lot more when traveling for leisure. (Usually me shouting at the kids to stop misbehaving or whatever). When it's just me alone on a business trip, I'm at my window seat usually asleep, reading or watching a movie - not even talking to other people. I don't even talk to other people in the lounge unless I run into someone I know and usually it's a less than 5 minute conversation. I enjoy the solitude of business travel.

"crowd the dance floor"? Where are business travelers going dancing? I have been traveling for business for 25 years and the very rare times I ever danced while traveling for work were at private, corporate sponsored parties arranged around a conference which, by definition, was exactly what you were hoping for - a lounge for only business travelers where you wouldn't see them as you wouldn't be invited!

fotographer

I am the kind of business traveler, that when at the airport/plane/hotel, all my business comes to a stop. (well it helps that I work for myself.)

NoTravelIsFree

Exhibit A