This is the second post in a series documenting the differences between traveling as a backpacker and as a business traveler. To see the first post in the series about the differences in air travel, please click here. Next, I want to cover the differences in accommodations.
One of the biggest questions people asked about our backpacking trip was, “What was it like to stay in hostels?” often asked with an intonation that implies that hostels must be dirty and terrible places to “have” to stay when traveling on a budget. So I thought I would compare my Singapore accommodations on both trips. While backpacking, Amy and I stayed at the lovely Sleepy Sam’s in the Arab section of Singapore, just down from the Masjid Sultan mosque.
We sprung for a private room ($62/night), but shared the bath, toilet and kitchen facilities with everyone. Included in that nightly fee was a simple breakfast of toast, jam and coffee, so we never really had to use the very nice kitchen.
Compare that to the luxurious Fairmont Hotel, which is located across the street from the famous Raffles Hotel, the birthplace of the Singapore Sling.
My room at the Fairmont ran $265/night, but did include a magnificent buffet breakfast every morning (which was most likely a huge contributor to the approximately 5lbs I gained on this trip despite working out 4 days in the Fairmount’s huge gym). The biggest difference probably has to be the beds. At the Fairmont there was a very comfortable king size bed with fresh sheets every 3 days. At Sleepy Sams the bed was a pretty thin mattress on a small platform. However, I will note that the free lobby wifi was MUCH slower than the wifi at Sleepy Sam’s.
All in all I am not sure that the Fairmont is worth the entire $1,100 premium that they charge over a place like Sleepy Sam’s for 6 nights in Singapore. In fact, at the Sustainable Brands 2011 Conference in Monterey, the second stop on my business trip, I learned about Google’s travel and expense system, Trips, that employs gamification principals to save the company money. As it was explained, the system works by allotting employees a set amount of funding for a trip to a city or region. If the employee is able to book and travel for less than the set amount, my understanding is that the employee has two options on what to do with the savings:
- Bank the savings to use on a future trip – allowing you to stay at a luxury hotel; or
- Donate the difference to charity.
If we had that system at Johnson & Johnson, I think that I may have honestly considered the option of staying at Sleepy Sam’s if I knew that I could bank the savings or donate it to charity. The potential $1,100 savings would have been a bit of an inconvenience and a little less comfortable, but if I am willing to take it on, I should share in the savings, right? What would you do? Let me know in the comments below. And if you work for Google (Kristin, I am talking to you) and I have this wrong please correct me.
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