Business folks take emails before families

Study finds people check email and TV before calling home

Nice.

A survey of 6,000 business travelers by the folks at Four Points Sheraton hotels finds that we put a higher priority on our email than our families. Asked what they do on the road as soon as they wake up, 36 per cent said they check their smartphones. Next most popular first-thing activity was turning on the TV at 19 per cent. Then came taking a shower (18 per cent). Checking Facebook came fourth (12 per cent), while checking Twitter and calling home were in a distant tie for fifth at seven per cent.

And I hear some folks think we’re too tied to technology and too wired into our jobs.

The hotel chain surveyed 1,000 business travelers in each of the following six places; North America, the UK, China, India, Germany and Brazil.

Among other findings were that 55 per cent of biz travel types take three or four devices with them on the road. The most popular device for road warriors was a smartphone (74 per cent), followed by tablets (65 per cent), music players (43) and laptops (32). Chinese respondents were the only ones to rank cameras ahead of laptops.

CANADIAN TOURISM WANTS YOU

The Canadian Tourism Commission has launched a program called 35 million directors, and they’re asking Canadians to upload their favourite photos and video so they can put together a campaign to lure folks to our shores. A press release this week says the subjects could be just about anything; “an event, ac- tivity, city, farm, festival, hike, sport, museum, regional cuisine or nightlife spot, to name just a few.”

By Sept. 16 they plan to choose the best submissions and “weave them together with the work of professional directors to create a unique international broadcast video about Canada.” For more information go to 35milliondirectors.com.

UNLEASH YOUR INNER YODELER

Austria is encouraging folks to let loose with their favourite yodel. They’ve inaugurated a new hiking path with rest stops where hikers can push a button and hear a recorded yodel in two-part harmony.

Austrian yodeler and hotel owner Christian Eder said he came up with the idea to get folks to “loosen up a bit with a simple yodel.”