Traditionally, summer is the time for some rest and relaxation. But this year, gas prices are up. Leisure time is scarce. What are workers to do to get a little work/life balance? It might be time for a “bizcation.”
Combining business travel with a mini-family vacation is a growing trend in a tight economy, according to a 2010 survey of 549 business travelers by Homewood Suites. Sixty-seven percent of frequent business travelers said that they sometimes or often combined a business and leisure trip. That was up from 51 percent in 2000.
Nancy Rafuse has been combining the two for years. The managing partner of Ashe, Rafuse & Hill LLP, a Midtown law firm specializing in employment law, frequently travels for conferences, client meetings or court dates. She began taking her daughter on select trips when she was 8.
“Kristen is a huge history buff, so if I knew I was going to be speaking only two hours at a conference in Washington, D.C., I’d take her with me,” said Rafuse. “She’d sit in the back of the room doing homework, and then we’d take off to sightsee.”
Now age 14, Kristen has seen Washington, New York City, Boston and Philadelphia. “Staying at the St. Regis in Washington, D.C., we were two blocks from the White House. We visited the Smithsonian, Ford's Theatre, the International Spy Museum. We’d walk all day, then come back and order room service,” said Rafuse.
The lawyer buys kid-oriented guide books on the cities, and mother and daughter plan their trips together. In New York, they went to the Statue of Liberty and ground zero; in Boston, Old South Meeting House and Paul Revere’s House. “We were sitting in the tavern near Independence Hall in Philadelphia talking about how Thomas Jefferson and John Adams might have sat there. I said, ‘I’ll be Thomas and you be John -- go,' and we had a great conversation.
“Instead of reading about facts and dates in a book, our ‘history trips’ put Kristen literally on the ground. She learns by doing and seeing,” she said.
Rafuse finds the mini-vacations a convenient and inexpensive way to spend fun time with her daughter. Her flight and hotel room are paid for by the firm; she has to pay only for her daughter’s flight and some food. “A PBJ sandwich and chips at the Smithsonian isn’t a big drag on the food budget,” she said. The downside is that not every trip is appropriate -- sometimes she knows she’ll have no free time. She also reminds her daughter that if it weren’t a business trip, they wouldn’t be staying in such nice hotels.
She and her husband take the family to the beach every year, but the work trips have become nice add-ons. “Now that my son is old enough to travel with me, he wants to see the Bruins and Red Sox play in Boston. I’m waiting for the right trip to make that happen.”
For single parents, taking the kids along on business trips can offer peace of mind and solve the problem of child care at home.
“A lot of industry conferences are scheduled in the summer, and hotels encourage you to bring the family with special rates and activities,” said Theresa A. Schroeder, community affairs director for Turner Construction-Southeast Region. In charge of the construction management firm’s many outreach programs, Schroeder travels frequently to charitable functions, ribbon cuttings and industry conferences.
“The Georgia Association of Physical Plant Administrators has its annual conference on Memorial Day at Jekyll Island, and my kids and I went together for many years,” said Schroeder. William and Lauren Schroeder are now 12 and 9. She started taking them with her when her daughter was 4.
“I’d tack on a day before and after the conference. We’d drive down together. The room was a business expense, and the hotel offered child care. It was an economical way to have a family vacation in a resort setting,” she said. While Schroeder went to meetings, her kids went swimming or to pizza/movie parties and made friends with other attendees’ children.
“It was a great advantage not having to leave my children behind and gave me greater work/life balance,” she said. “It also gave them a much greater understanding of what I do.”
Taking her kids to black-tie dinners and other social gatherings taught them how to interact with others and how to behave at formal events. “Of course, sometimes, they’ll embarrass you, like the time the president of Georgia Tech asked my very young son if he was planning to go to Tech, and he said, ‘Are you kidding? I’m going to Yale.’ When the small talk lags, kids can be great conversation starters,” said Schroeder.
She has to be in Boston for work in October and is planning on taking her kids to visit their cousins there. Overall, combining business and family travel has made for many happy memories, she said.
Sometimes a business trip to an exotic location can spark the idea for a special vacation. Such was the case for Julie Petherbridge, assistant professor of accounting at Mercer University. She had a professional article accepted and was asked to speak at an audit quality conference in Milan in October 2010. That gave her a free three-night trip to Italy. Her husband, Scott, worked for the RBM of Atlanta Mercedes-Benz dealership. By arranging to take European delivery for a future demo car for the dealership, he earned his flight and two hotel nights.
“With careful planning, we were able to spend 11 days in Europe together and only paid for five hotel nights, some food and sightseeing,” said Petherbridge. Her mom stayed with the kids while the couple flew to Stuttgart, Germany, took possession of the car and drove through Austria to Venice and Milan.
“In Milan, my husband knew that he would be on his own to explore while I went to the conference,” said Petherbridge. “That allowed me to focus on my work and network with international colleagues. I’ve already started writing another research paper with someone I met there, so my work benefited from that trip, and we did, too.”
They visited Florence and Switzerland on the return trip to Stuttgart, where they shipped the car and flew home. “We planned ahead and used Trip Advisor [a travel review site] to find reasonable hotels and restaurants off the beaten tourist path. We enjoyed free walking tours in each city,” said Petherbridge. “By combining our work travel with vacation time, we had a very nice anniversary trip.”
Her advice to families considering work vacations: “Plan ahead so that you can make use of frequent flier miles. Research coupons to nearby attractions and things you want to do,” she said. “You can be cheap and still have a great time.”
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