Travel Essentials

In theory, it’s easy. Economies of scale say it even makes sense. But if it seems hard to hook up the back end of that business trip to the front end of an inexpensive family holiday, maybe your expectations are too high.

For many business travellers, a scheduled trip is packed with meetings, obligatory dinners, and networking galore. Other times, a trip isn’t as action-packed and you know your independent-minded spouse could have come along, allowing the two of you to make a long weekend of it after the business part of the trip was over. After all, when is the next time you’ll make it to [insert desirable destination here]? When you factor in a couple of kids, it gets trickier.

“I couldn’t very well go to Disneyland and not bring my family,” says dental- solutions specialist Barb Donadt. She sells dental and medical devices for Nobel Biocare, and this year the annual North American sales conference was at Disneyland.

Donadt says the company is supportive of such family excursions and it encourages families to book through the corporate travel service. But both she and the company draw a line between work and play. If her husband and sons had travelled with her at the outset, she wouldn’t have been able to stay in the same hotel room and wouldn’t have had much time for them while the conference was on. Besides, the rooms typically assigned to corporate travellers are not amenable to families. “We always get a suite when we travel as a family,” says Donadt.

Nikola Berube, director of sales at AMA Travel, often takes the family when she’s travelling for work. “We have breakfast together and then meet up at the end of the day,” she says. “It’s almost like a regular workday.” She says the key to making it work is research – check your business trip agenda to make sure you’ll have some time. Find out about cheaper rates and excursion discounts before you leave.

“Lots of hotels will extend corporate rates to families,” Berube says. “But you have to ask – either at the hotel, conference organizer or travel agent.”

“Disneyland extended the corporate rate to families of employees who were staying on after the conference,” Donadt confirms. Annual conferences such as hers make combining work and leisure trips easier to manage because you can plan ahead and seek out deals.

It’s those savings that make an otherwise expensive vacation easier to manage. Think about it: a nice hotel at a cheaper rate and one out of four airfares paid for. When you hook up a getaway to a business trip, the trick is to consider it a discount, not a freebie.

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