Australians top global homesickness survey of business travellers

A LACK of good coffee, our favourite TV shows and a familiar pillow are among our complaints about travel, a new survey has found.

HOME is where the heart is for Australian travellers, who are more likely to miss the comforts of home compared to the rest of the world.

woman relaxed by the pool with cup of coffee

Business travellers from Australia are more likely to miss home, family, pets and home cooking, than those from other parts of the world.

Only nine per cent say they miss nothing, research from Regus Australia has found.

“Australia is a fair way away from the rest of the world,” said Paul Migliorni, CEO of Regus Australia. “The larger distance created a bigger separation anxiety from family and home.”

City breakdowns reveal business travellers from Perth are more likely to be homesick.

Brisbane travellers will miss home cooking.

Sydney travellers will miss coffee and their pillow.

Melbourne travellers will miss television.

And residents of Adelaide are least likely to miss anything from home.

“We are finding Australians are keen to get home and are reducing business travel that is considered low value,” Mr Migliorni said.

Hamish Petrie from Sydney travels every two weeks for his job with Ingogo, a provider of technology to the taxi industry. While he’s away he tries to pack in as much as he can, to avoid spending too long away from home – and his two young children.

“I will literally have back-to-back meetings when I travel, right up until 9 o’clock at night,” he said.

At a height of 195cm, there are certain countries Mr Petrie misses home more.

“In Japan the beds are too small,” he said. “I need to sleep diagonally or on the floor.”

The survey also reveals technology is changing the way Australians travel for business, with a reduction in travel for some industries.

“Travel has decreased in the banking and ICT sectors where there is a greater take-up of business communication tools,” Mr Migliorni said.

The largest increase in business travel has been among healthcare and medicine professionals, with 61.5 per cent of those surveyed in this field saying they were travelling more for business now than 10 years ago.

Businesses with less than 50 employees are increasingly becoming frequent business travellers as they seek to expand opportunities.

“There is some business that still needs to be done face-to-face,” Mr Migliorni said.